Juniperus scopulorum "blue arrow", I surrender

[Fidur]

This is the most difficult tree I care for.

Front: Sides:

Foliage and trunk:

It's a Juniperus scopulorum "blue arrow"- Rocky mountain Juniper. It's one of my first nursery purchase and at the time (10 months ago), any Juniper was for me a perfect choice. How wrong.
It's very healthy and growing strong. It's been so for the last 10 months and it has very vertical growth
Now I'm stuck with it.
The distance from base to the first foliage is too long for the size of the tree.
It doesn´t like to be wired and bended (two branches broken). It's almost simetric in branches, branchelets,...and I think that's what annoys me the most.
I have thought of chopping one or both trunks, make a jin with one of them, airlayer, rewire and rebend,......

Can you think of a coherent design for it?

 

[just.wing.it]

I'd use it as a mother plant for cuttings....maybe.

 

[augustine]

Plant was bred for the upright growth/shape and you'll always be fighting it. I would enjoy it as a plant in the landscape.

 

[Shibui]

I started off with a few similar to this and had all the same problems but the lower trunks were really attractive so I grafted the trees to shimpaku foliage. Now much easier to manage.

2009



2011


2020

 

[Crazy Diamond]

Rafia and thick wire al you need

 

[Fidur]

Rafia and thick wire al you need

I have them. So now, what the plan should be to make a decent bonsai?....

 

[Forsoothe!]

Abandon ship! The love-hate relationship will not change because the tree is not good for what you want it to do. Regardless of what you thought it cost, you are continuing to pay in the currency that is irreplaceable, time. Been there, done that. Take it to the curb and cross your fingers that someone carries it off in the night.

 

[Vance Wood]

Abandon ship! The love-hate relationship will not change because the tree is not good for what you want it to do. Regardless of what you thought it cost, you are continuing to pay in the currency that is irreplaceable, time. Been there, done that. Take it to the curb and cross your fingers that someone carries it off in the night.

It is possible to graft Shimpaku to those trunks but the question remaons: Do know how to graft these trees?

 

[Fidur]

Ok. I guess my design skills are limited , and I accept the momentaneus defeat .
The shimpaku graft is interesting, but anyway I have no shimpaku avalaible. Would a horizontalis, pfitzeriana or old gold work?
As to me this tree is a lost cause, I think I will experiment a bit and try to learn and get positive feedback from the tree. Who knows, maybe it will smile at me.....
Thanks for your comments!!!!

 

[Paradox]

Ok. I guess my design skills are limited , and I accept the momentaneus defeat .
The shimpaku graft is interesting, but anyway I have no shimpaku avalaible. Would a horizontalis, pfitzeriana or old gold work?
As to me this tree is a lost cause, I think I will experiment a bit and try to learn and get positive feedback from the tree. Who knows, maybe it will smile at me.....
Thanks for your comments!!!!

It isn't your skills, it's the fact the tree was genetically bred and cultivated to grow straight up. The cultivar name "blue arrow" indicates it was grown to be tall and "straight as an arrow".

Even someone with the skills of a master will be constantly battling the tree's design to be tall and straight.

It is best to go with what the tree gives you and work with that instead of trying to bend the tree to your will to be what it's not.

The only possibility I see is to try to design it to look something like an acacia tree. Lots of foliage on top of a bare trunk

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I gave up the blue arrow / skyrocket cultivar too.
They're incredibly strong, but the wood is too dense to bend even with my own body weight as soon as it's half an inch thick. Sidenote: I'm a skinny guy, but I have the relative strength of an ant.

No wires could hold it into place.
Mine did have a straight trunk, and it was 5 euros on a sale. So I gave it three years of trying, but I threw in the towel. No shame in that, I believe. If it don't work, it just don't work.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

I started off with a few similar to this and had all the same problems but the lower trunks were really attractive so I grafted the trees to shimpaku foliage. Now much easier to manage.

2009

View attachment 394983View attachment 394982

2011
View attachment 394981

2020
View attachment 394980

The original was a Squamata or Chinensis stricta?

 

[Shibui]

The original was a Squamata or Chinensis stricta?

Not sure of the species or variety I had originally but no amount of wire, raffia or talent could stop it reaching for the sky whenever it grew and foliage was so prickly so probably not a chinensis and I don't think squamata is quite so vicious either. Forever pulling broken needles out of my fingers after working on it so I empathize absolutely with @Fidur
Grafting was the best think I ever did.

It is possible to graft Shimpaku to those trunks but the question remaons: Do know how to graft these trees?

Approach grafting takes a while but is so easy that even those with little skill or knowledge can change a tree over.

Would a horizontalis, pfitzeriana or old gold work?

I'm confident that any juniper should be OK on any juniper stock plant. It appears you have nothing to lose anyway.