Juniper identification

[vbakatare]

Hello everyone. I decided to try and make some cuttings off of my grandma's front yard a week ago. The foliage looks nice, but my grandma doesn't know what variety it is as it was already planted there when she bought the house. Does anyone have any ideas? If you need a picture of the whole tree, I can take one over the weekend

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Whatever it is, it has soms tight foliage! Awesome!
Could be shimpaku, or chinensis. But since some wildtype sabina can look pretty similar, I can't tell for sure. Sabina should smell spicier than chinensis and cause more of a rash on your skin.

If you can, try to find berries or flowering structures and picture them. Same goes for the bark of the plant. These all can aid in ID-ing them.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

Loosk like a Juniperus chinensis cultivar or maybe Pfitzeriana

 

[vbakatare]

Whatever it is, it has soms tight foliage! Awesome!
Could be shimpaku, or chinensis. But since some wildtype sabina can look pretty similar, I can't tell for sure. Sabina should smell spicier than chinensis and cause more of a rash on your skin.

If you can, try to find berries or flowering structures and picture them. Same goes for the bark of the plant. These all can aid in ID-ing them.

yeah in my head, I'm hoping it's like a shimpaku, but I don't want to get my hopes to high. I'll take pictures tomorrow and post it. Can a sabina grow to be about 5ft tall? I read that they're shrubs

 

[vbakatare]

Loosk like a Juniperus chinensis cultivar or maybe Pfitzeriana

interesting. I didn't think of pfitzeriana. when I take photos it'll be hard to tell because her gardener likes to keep it shaped but I'll do my best to get detailed photos

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

yeah in my head, I'm hoping it's like a shimpaku, but I don't want to get my hopes to high. I'll take pictures tomorrow and post it. Can a sabina grow to be about 5ft tall? I read that they're shrubs

Sabina, if old enough and trimmed right, can reach substantial size. There are a couple old ones in my town that have grown to 6ft with man made interventions.

Pfizeriana/media is unlikely, those have way leggier foliage, not at all that tight. Regular chinensis can get close to itoigawa or kishu, because the natural variation in chinensis as a 'wildtype' is pretty awesome; it's where kishu and itoigawa were selected from. Or actually, they're named after the region where those specific juniperus chinensis were found.
As with any juniper, when grown from seed you can find a whole lot of difference.

Whatever it is, it has the good traits. If you weren't in the US, I would've asked for a cutting!

 

[Forsoothe!]

Looks more Chamaecyparis to me, but what do I know? Run your hand over the foliage. If it's pokie, Juniper, if soft False Cypress.

 

[vbakatare]

thanks everyone for the feedback! I'll post some detailed photos of the mother plant and bark, maybe it'll help.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Looks more Chamaecyparis to me, but what do I know? Run your hand over the foliage. If it's pokie, Juniper, if soft False Cypress.

I havent thought about those! Could be!
But doesn't chameacyparis have a different foliage orientation? As in, it grows more flatted out like thuja.
The one shoot he's holding looks exactly like my j. Chinensis.

Berries and trunk pics would probably be enough to at least tell the difference.

 

[Forsoothe!]

Without being judgemental, they go both ways...

 

[vbakatare]

hi guys I stopped by my grandma's house after work. I checked for berries, but didn't see any. hope this helps!

 

[vbakatare]

 

[vbakatare]

 

[vbakatare]

sorry for the multiple posts. I was having a hard time attaching the last 2

 

[Esolin]

I wanna say Hollywood Juniper (Chinensis Torulosa) based on the clumpy flame-like growth (and their commoness in your region), but it looks a little too yellow/lime green for a Hollywood, so I'm not sure.

 

[vbakatare]

I wanna say Hollywood Juniper (Chinensis Torulosa) based on the clumpy flame-like growth (and their commoness in your region), but it looks a little too yellow/lime green for a Hollywood, so I'm not sure.

yeah this one has me a bit confused. at first I thought it was a just a common juniper or maybe a Prostrata, but like you said the foliage is a light green, so like @Wires_Guy_wires said, the thought of shimpaku did cross my mind. highly unlikely, but a guy can dream

 

[Esolin]

Two other common Chinese juniper cultivars in these parts are Gold Coast/Old Gold (I'm told these are basically the same thing), and Sea Green. The colors of those are much closer, but truly, it's impossible to make a 100% certain ID without a nursery tag. And technically, any scale-foliage juniper is apparently a shimpaku. Granted, when bonsai people say shimpaku, they're usually referring to one of the few prized shimpaku cultivars like kishu, itoigawa, etc. But whatever cultivar you've got, you can still call it a shimpaku!

 

[vbakatare]

Two other common Chinese juniper cultivars in these parts are Gold Coast/Old Gold (I'm told these are basically the same thing), and Sea Green. The colors of those are much closer, but truly, it's impossible to make a 100% certain ID without a nursery tag. And technically, any scale-foliage juniper is apparently a shimpaku. Granted, when bonsai people say shimpaku, they're usually referring to one of the few prized shimpaku cultivars like kishu, itoigawa, etc. But whatever cultivar you've got, you can still call it a shimpaku!

I watched Bjorn's video and thought it was interesting to learn about shimpaku. yeah it's difficult to know what exactly it is. just thought someone could identify it as it was already planted there before my grandma purchased her house(more than 60 years ago).

 

[Ruddigger]

I have an old gold, it looks closer to the flat foliage of itoigawa than the puffy foliage of kishu, and that one looks puffy to me. Hollywood is the obvious choice for the southern california area, but they arent usually that tight a foliage. Could be you just have a really nice genetic version. The size of the trunk makes me think its a prostrata, but the foliage isnt leggy like a prostrata. Very interesting.

What about parsonii? The thickness of the foliage, kind of a halfway between a california and a shimpaku reminds me of a parsonii juniper.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

I think its a Juniper 100%, Ito or Kishu I dont think, probably other chinensis cultivar or hybrid, old gold can make really tight foliage almost like ito