Juniper Chinensis Old Gold x2

[Drewski]

Made a wrong turn that took me well out of my way this afternoon. Before I was able to get going back in the right direction I stumbled across a nursery. I know I’ve driven past it before, but had completely forgotten about it. Thought I might as well have a look while I was there. And that’s when I found these two junipers. $7.99 each. Canadian. Cleaned out the dead stuff and some crotch growth, and did a little pruning. Removed a bar branch on one, and reduced a whorl down to one branch on the other. As a bonus, a branch that will definitely be removed looks like it has started ground layering itself. I piled some soil around it to help it out, and hopefully it will be good to go come spring. What do you guys think?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Old gold is a pfizer cultivar, which means it's 50% sabina juniper and will act as such.
The foliage will be coarser than regular chinensis and harder to control because a pfizer goes juvenile pretty easily.
I consider grafting mine with itoigawa or something with a more compact foliage type.

 

[Drewski]

That explains the amount of juvenile foliage I see. I wasn’t expecting there to be as much as there is. How long does it tend to take for the juvenile foliage to develop into the mature foliage?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

That explains the amount of juvenile foliage I see. I wasn’t expecting there to be as much as there is. How long does it tend to take for the juvenile foliage to develop into the mature foliage?

In mine, which gets a small hair cut every year. It takes roughly one half to a full year to revert from juvenile to adult.
However, some branches that are juvenile have been like that for the past three years and didn't go adult even when exposed to lots of direct sunlight and even if those branches are left alone.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Nice young junipers. Grow them for what they are. Forget about grafting. Bend and twist the trunks to make interesting shapes. The foliage will always be "loose" but just go with it. View these as silly putty, and bend them as you want. Experiment, make different styles with each of them. Experiment.

Keep an eye out, and at some point do pick up the more select Shimpaku varieties, such as 'Itoigawa' or 'Kishu'. Even young examples will be fun to work with.

@Wires_Guy_wires - Grafting, on such young junipers is pointless. There is nothing special about the trunks, therefore, if you were to get 'Itoigawa' or 'Kishu' stock from which to take your scions, why not just grow the superior shimpaku varieties? Nothing on these trunks is worth saving to warrant going through the time, the several years it will take to graft shimpaku foliage onto these junipers. Grafting is only worth the effort to improve a trunk of some quality. When you have young thin trunks, there is "nothing there" worth the effort to "change the foliage". The better shimpaku varieties grow very well on their own roots, so no advantage to grafting to young trunks of other shimpaku varieties.

 

[Drewski]

That was the plan. I liked what the trunks were doing, and couldn’t resist at that price. I have bought a few shimpakus, and have wired them up with some bends, twists and turns. Now I need to let them grow for a bit. It’s a fun journey.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

@Wires_Guy_wires - Grafting, on such young junipers is pointless. There is nothing special about the trunks, therefore, if you were to get 'Itoigawa' or 'Kishu' stock from which to take your scions, why not just grow the superior shimpaku varieties? Nothing on these trunks is worth saving to warrant going through the time, the several years it will take to graft shimpaku foliage onto these junipers. Grafting is only worth the effort to improve a trunk of some quality. When you have young thin trunks, there is "nothing there" worth the effort to "change the foliage". The better shimpaku varieties grow very well on their own roots, so no advantage to grafting to young trunks of other shimpaku varieties.

Itoigawa junipers of that size cost me 40-120 euros.
A pencil thick itoigawa cutting for scion grafting is 16 euros, a pfizer trunk with a 2-3cm diameter is 5 euros.
The effort saves me 5 years of trunk growing and at least 50% of my money.
You don't have to agree with that, but to me it sounds reasonably worth the effort.
It's a 30 euro hands-on grafting training if all goes bad. If all goes well, it's a 30 euro, 10 year old itoigawa done in two years.

Bigger is better and you're right about this all, I'm not arguing, it makes sense. I just view it from a stereotypical cheapskate perspective; decently or even reasonably aged material is rare here. Or at least pretty expensive or poorly developed trunk-wise.
I'm growing as much cuttings as I can for that reason.

 

[Drewski]

As I’m only a few months into my bonsai journey I will leave grafting to the future, more experienced, and skilled (hopefully) me. I’ve already been overly ambitious, thinking that I’ll acquire the skill and knowledge to do things properly when the time arises. You‘ll see what I mean when I post looking for advice about the giant sequoia I bought.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Itoigawa junipers of that size cost me 40-120 euros.
A pencil thick itoigawa cutting for scion grafting is 16 euros, a pfizer trunk with a 2-3cm diameter is 5 euros.
The effort saves me 5 years of trunk growing and at least 50% of my money.
You don't have to agree with that, but to me it sounds reasonably worth the effort.
It's a 30 euro hands-on grafting training if all goes bad. If all goes well, it's a 30 euro, 10 year old itoigawa done in two years.

Bigger is better and you're right about this all, I'm not arguing, it makes sense. I just view it from a stereotypical cheapskate perspective; decently or even reasonably aged material is rare here. Or at least pretty expensive or poorly developed trunk-wise.
I'm growing as much cuttings as I can for that reason.

I get it. In USA the 'Itoigawa' and 'Kishu' junipers are also expensive compared to common landscape junipers, but not wildly so. Young stock can be had for very modest amounts. In USA young juniper stock of these shimpaku cultivars can be had for $5 to $40 depending age and size. This is for material with no serious bonsai training. But you are a propagator, you can simply solve the cost problem by rooting more cuttings. Be "the guy" that drives the cost of shimpaku juniper stock down through the bottom. It is easy enough to do.