"Old Gold" Juniper

[Pitoon]

Well I finally potted up this "Old Gold" Juniper. I got this one earlier this year. I wired up half then waited several months for it to recover and wired the other half, and then bare rooted it into a mica pot.

 

[Warpig]

I only ask because im still learning junipers. I have heard that you never want to bare root a juniper. Instead, you want slowly change out the soil over numerous repottings. But like i said i have just gotten my first of these so i might be wrong.

 

[Shinjuku]

This past February, I bare rooted eight of my junipers, and all eight are healthy with very strong growth this summer. Maybe it’s ok to bare root them in some situations.

Pitoon - Your juniper looks nice. Since you did so much work on it in one year, are you concerned about it being too much stress for the tree?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

As far as I know, old gold junipers are close to indestructable. You'll get a tonne of juvenile foliage with this one. Mine respond like that when I go hard on them.
I like the double trunks, but the deadwood seems a bit too much for my personal taste, I would reduce it if it were mine.

 

[leatherback]

Nice first wiring of an uninteresting starting plant.

If I may offer some suggestions for next time? You could leave a bit more foliage on the plant. It almost looks like you removed all green from the branches and left just bits of green at the end. The aim with juniper is not to have long bare branches with only foliage at the end. I do however see how you get there. Every explanation I have found online for setting up juniper in the first wiring seems to say: Remove all green except fot the end of the branch". What they in my view do not make clear is what they consider a branch A lot of small green tufts along the primary branches can be kept and treated as branchlets.

In general it is better to cut back long branches to green side-branches and use the stronger inner green, so you get a fuller look of the tree and you have something to later cut back too. It also gives the plant a bit more strength to recover.

 

[sorce]

I got a pfitzer on the fritz.

I'll commend the "doing the work" but I'm gonna have in on your timing, potting purposes, and "recovery" periods.

Junipers will grow twice in a year, both of these I consider to be good "recovery" periods. The problem this tree is having currently, is, in This state, it needs to be going into a recovery period right now. Not winter. What's worse, because juniper strength is in the foliage, this tree must grow some before entering recovery. Growth time you may not have.

Basically, the tree should have looked like this June 1st. Minus pot. Then it would have the entire year to recover, two spurts.
You could have even repotted it after the first growth if it seemed healthy enough.

So you are basically an entire year behind, with a tree that is not thriving, because you were trying to be safe.

The pot....oh the pot.....

It looks larger, and not a better shape, on a tree that didn't need Repotting.
Kind of adding insult to injury.

Even a juniper in full foliage, as this was upon receipt, wouldn't need a pot so deep and wide.
It is highly likely, due to the lack of foliage, roots will actually die back, leaving more space, rotting tissue, and water that is not being used, aiding in rot and poor health.

The nursery trade has pot size and foliage amount right. Balanced.

So my starting point begins there.

Since our goal is smaller pots, and they can take smaller pots, I like to keep the ratio of pot space to foliage mass equal. Or MORE foliage than pot space. Never the opposite.

So if we intend to grow trunks, we can pot up slowly as the nurseries.

Or if we intend to freeze trunk size and begin styling toward Bonsai ....
A large foliage mass can be place in a small pot, then trimmed down to equal after root recovery.

Sorce

 

[Warpig]

@sorce I always enjoy reading your posts and dont change, but i have to point out in the three years since i been lurking on the forum. I think that might have been the longest most thought out post ive seen from you.

@Pitoon I do like where i see this tree going just know that it's going to be recovering and you might want to take some extra steps to see it through the winter.

 

[Pitoon]

I only ask because im still learning junipers. I have heard that you never want to bare root a juniper. Instead, you want slowly change out the soil over numerous repottings. But like i said i have just gotten my first of these so i might be wrong.

The myth is out there about that saying, however my belief is that if you have enough roots to support the needles/leaves, and enough needles/leaves to support the roots then it should be OK. I would NOT bareroot a pine.

Pitoon - Your juniper looks nice. Since you did so much work on it in one year, are you concerned about it being too much stress for the tree?

Thanks! For some reason the tree looks a lot better in person. The pictures doesnt capture the feeling you get when you see it in real life.

I didn't do all the work to the tree in one shot like how they do at demo's. The work I did was over months. I believe any time one prune leaves or roots you put stress on a plant. All I can do now at this point is to nurture it till it's recovered.

As far as I know, old gold junipers are close to indestructable. You'll get a tonne of juvenile foliage with this one. Mine respond like that when I go hard on them.
I like the double trunks, but the deadwood seems a bit too much for my personal taste, I would reduce it if it were mine.

Yes, the deadwood does look a bit too much right now. But my long term goal is to set the branches in the shape they are in now and then slowly begin grafting shimpaku on to all the branches. So technically the tree will shrink I would say by 1/3 the size it is now.

Nice first wiring of an uninteresting starting plant.

If I may offer some suggestions for next time? You could leave a bit more foliage on the plant. It almost looks like you removed all green from the branches and left just bits of green at the end. The aim with juniper is not to have long bare branches with only foliage at the end. I do however see how you get there. Every explanation I have found online for setting up juniper in the first wiring seems to say: Remove all green except fot the end of the branch". What they in my view do not make clear is what they consider a branch A lot of small green tufts along the primary branches can be kept and treated as branchlets.

In general it is better to cut back long branches to green side-branches and use the stronger inner green, so you get a fuller look of the tree and you have something to later cut back too. It also gives the plant a bit more strength to recover.

Thanks! If you read the reply above about setting the branches and then grafting to reduce the size of the tree it will make sense to have the longer branches as it gives room for error.....failed grafts.

I got a pfitzer on the fritz.

I'll commend the "doing the work" but I'm gonna have in on your timing, potting purposes, and "recovery" periods.

Junipers will grow twice in a year, both of these I consider to be good "recovery" periods. The problem this tree is having currently, is, in This state, it needs to be going into a recovery period right now. Not winter. What's worse, because juniper strength is in the foliage, this tree must grow some before entering recovery. Growth time you may not have.

Basically, the tree should have looked like this June 1st. Minus pot. Then it would have the entire year to recover, two spurts.
You could have even repotted it after the first growth if it seemed healthy enough.

So you are basically an entire year behind, with a tree that is not thriving, because you were trying to be safe.

The pot....oh the pot.....

It looks larger, and not a better shape, on a tree that didn't need Repotting.
Kind of adding insult to injury.

Even a juniper in full foliage, as this was upon receipt, wouldn't need a pot so deep and wide.
It is highly likely, due to the lack of foliage, roots will actually die back, leaving more space, rotting tissue, and water that is not being used, aiding in rot and poor health.

The nursery trade has pot size and foliage amount right. Balanced.

So my starting point begins there.

Since our goal is smaller pots, and they can take smaller pots, I like to keep the ratio of pot space to foliage mass equal. Or MORE foliage than pot space. Never the opposite.

So if we intend to grow trunks, we can pot up slowly as the nurseries.

Or if we intend to freeze trunk size and begin styling toward Bonsai ....
A large foliage mass can be place in a small pot, then trimmed down to equal after root recovery.

Sorce

@sorce that was one of the most longest serious post I've ever seen you post. This twin trunk was worked in two seperate sessions months apart. First trunk was trimmed down and left alone second trunk was not touched at all. After a couple of months the first trunk was wired. Second trunk was not touched. Once I saw new growth on the first trunk I trimmed down the second trunk and then left alone. Then it was finally wired after I started to see new growth on the second trunk.....and yes it has reverted back to its juvenile foliage already. I could have waited to repot but honestly I wanted to get the process of growing the roots out horizontally started. This pot is not it's final pot, I would say more as a training pot, no different than a wooden one.
Bonsai is not about trying to cram a large tree into a small pot. I like both the Chinese and Japanese style of bonsai, usage in pots is quite different between the two styles. The future size of this tree will be reduce about 1/3. By that time this tree will have established a good root system horizontally and when it's time to reduce and repot into something a bit smaller there will be no need to remove a massive amount of roots vertically.

 

[Pitoon]

@Pitoon I do like where i see this tree going just know that it's going to be recovering and you might want to take some extra steps to see it through the winter.

This one will be going into the basement where the temperature will be constant once we start getting temps in the 60's. I will most likely provide supplemental lighting with an led array.

 

[leatherback]

This one will be going into the basement where the temperature will be constant once we start getting temps in the 60's. I will most likely provide supplemental lighting with an led array.

why? how cold does it get? if no frost for the next 4 weeks, I would not worry

 

[Pitoon]

why? how cold does it get? if no frost for the next 4 weeks, I would not worry

We get below 0 degree F in out area. The tree will stay out the entire month of September. I would suspect we get our first frost by mid to late November. So by end of September I will move it to the basement. The temps in the basement remain a constant low 70's F as long as I keep the temp 50 degrees and above, provide good lighting root growth will remain active.

 

[just.wing.it]

The temps in the basement remain a constant low 70's F as long as I keep the temp 50 degrees and above, provide good lighting root growth will remain active.

This part sound interesting....
Do you plan to only do this for this one winter?
Have you successfully done this kind of thing before?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

My pfizers/media junipers survived being frozen to the core, and being cut in half during that time (straight vertical cut from trunk to roots). I'm not going to protect them, because I think it would be more troublesome to keep them alive that way.
0F is just 2.77 degrees C away from our last -15°C winter. I think it'll be fine without any protection to be honest.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

My pfizers/media junipers survived being frozen to the core, and being cut in half during that time (straight vertical cut from trunk to roots). I'm not going to protect them, because I think it would be more troublesome to keep them alive that way.
0F is just 2.77 degrees C away from our last -15°C winter. I think it'll be fine without any protection to be honest.

Agreed. You’ll have better results leaving it outside than trying to keep it healthy inside all winter.

 

[leatherback]

Mine took -22C/-8F last winter. Not a single branchlet lost.
As long as you keep them out of the wind and sun when frozen fully, they don't mind. THey do however need seasons/dormancy!

 

[Pitoon]

Mine took -22C/-8F last winter. Not a single branchlet lost.
As long as you keep them out of the wind and sun when frozen fully, they don't mind. THey do however need seasons/dormancy!

I have other junipers in pots that stay out all winter with no problems. My concern with this one is that I removed about 60% of its roots. I'm sure you guys are right about leaving it out this winter, I just don't want to risk it for the reason mentioned above.

You mention about they require seasons/dormancy? When do the juni's get their seasons in areas such as Florida or SoCal or any other local that's warm throughout the year? .......they don't

 

[Pitoon]

Here's a couple of updated pics. The juvenile foliage has started to grow. I'll check the wire this summer, once I see the wire start to bite then I'll remove it.

 

[Pitoon]

Just a quick update....it's been almost a month from the last update. He juniper is growing really fast. Still pushing needle growth.

 

[Pitoon]

Update pics, I removed all the wire after 1yr being left on. Pretty much all the branches have set, but the branches are leggy so they all dropped once the wire was removed. It has put on a lot of growth this year.

 

[sorce]

Nice.

I hit my Old gold rather hard this year and it half stayed scale folaige.
Seems they should stay in line pretty well after while.

Sorce