(My) First styling on a new to me juniper

radhatter

Yamadori
Messages
87
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Location
Seattle, Washington
USDA Zone
8b
Picked this juniper up a few weeks ago, came from a guy who had it for 7 years but never styled it himself, he said he couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I believe it was probably styled before he got it as it had some really good bones to work with.

Here’s what I started with.
I decided to adjust the planting angle.
IMG_0671.jpeg

And several hours of wiring, pruning, and some light bending later
IMG_0678.jpeg
Plan to apply lime sulphur and I’m considering repotting to adjust the planting angle but I may wait on that. Is repotting after light styling in the same season too risky?

I’m torn on the bottom right branch. I’m leaning towards removing it and adding another Jin but I obviously haven’t committed to that yet. What do you all think?
 
I like what you've done with this.... but that lowest branch needs to go. First jin it and see if it fits... something tells me that you'll need to cut it flat.
The other question is where is the tree going (leaning)... in terms of directionality... right now I don't see much of it... maybe something to think about it.
 
Is repotting after light styling in the same season too risky?
Repot with light root prune is very little stress so should be no problem. Full repot with larger root reduction would be more risky.
I don't see 'light styling' as stress. Just changing position of some branches is very minimal stress on any tree. I would avoid repotting soon after removing large amounts of foliage but have never had adverse reaction to light reduction and repot.
 
Nice! If you don't adjust the angle when you repot, won't your new crown be crooked?
 
Nice first (by you) styling!
I do however think the profile needs to be compacted, right now it reminds me of an umbrella ☂️. I feel the entire foliage profile needs to be tightened up to the trunk and reduced, and some more defined pads or foliage regions need to be created

0ff0736b-6530-4a40-b996-143ff9b057a0.jpeg
 
The juniper got a repot. Glad I did as well, found that the previous owner had repotted without putting netting over the large drain holes in the bottom leading a large void in the bottom of the pot. I cleaned up the base a bit and found a nice nebari hidden under a lot of smaller surface roots. Since I repotted and cut some roots underneath as well, I decided I would take my time removing these small roots and give the tree a chance to fill the new soil before cutting off access to whatever feeder roots these surface roots were connected to.

Haven’t made any moves on that side pad yet either, wanted to see how it looked after being repotted.

Do you guys typically topdress junipers when you repot?


IMG_0683.jpeg
 
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Yeah, some chopped spaghnum would be a good top dressing.

I think the branch will go eventually, but I always hang on to them until I know for sure.

Sweet tree and great styling. I agree the narrower, more compact image looks pretty good for the future, but no rush. Let it recover a while and the tree can walk you through next steps when it regains strength. Junipers seem to like the misting setup I just got.
 
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