Juniper berries - should I remove them?

[emk]

Last spring the Chinese Juniper I bought at a local nursery the previous year had a crop of berries. Not being familiar with junipers, at first I thought it was some kind of disease or infestation! Heh. Anyhow, almost a whole year has passed and these berries are still on the juniper.

Should I pluck these off or leave them on? Do they inhibit or promote growth in any way (either by leaving them on as long as I have or by having refrained from removing them as they developed)? Will leaving them on or taking them off provide me with usable seeds?

 

[Anonymous User]

Fruit, flowers, buds in unwanted places all take energy from the tree.

When we wish to show flowers or fruit, often we will remove all except what is pleasing to the eye, sometimes we leave only a single fruit on a tree...it all depends on what you want to accomplish. Wisteria's for example can become too over powering with all the blooms, so sometimes we trim a few flower spikes off here and the in order to present a better image.

I usually remove my juniper seeds as the red balls look somehat out of place on an evergreen...but I like the looks of the red or blue berries on the landscape trees.


As to seeds...junipers are easily layered and by doing so you can cut years off the time it would take for a seed to grow.






Will

 

[emk]

Thanks for the info Mr. Heath. I took some cuttings last year, but I was just wondering if there was any point in hanging onto the seeds after I remove them from the tree.

 

[Anonymous User]

I just throw mine into the flower gardens...maybe the birds or other critters get them, maybe I'll find a few seedlings to plant out in the woods, maybe they just rot and add to the organic matter....


Will

 

[agraham]

I throw mine in the bathtub with some grain alcohol .

Just a joke folks.I don't make my gin in the bathtub.

andy

 

[Tachigi]

Emk, when it come to flowers, fruit remember the saying.......

No sex before a fight

As Will pointed out they will sap energy from where its needed. Once you obtain a semi finished image and want to adorn the tree with these highlights then this is the time.

Just a joke folks.I don't make my gin in the bathtub.

Thats right! Andy uses very large bonsai pots with cork stoppers

 

[Anonymous User]

No sex before a fight

I thought that was no fights before sex? Or was that during? Damnation, I can never remember that rule!



Will

 

[emk]

No sex before a fight

I thought that was no fights before sex? Or was that during?

Note to self: no fighting!

 

[Tachigi]

I thought that was no fights before sex? Or was that during?
Will

I guess that all depends on if your married or not

 

[Anonymous User]

I guess that all depends on if your married or not

Oh yeah, that would be "no sex after fights" then, thanks.