Want to know collected common juniper tips and tricks

[OTown]

Yeah, in a way sad that those trees are dug up to sit in a pot after being there for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Not sure whether I liked that opening shot.

There are two sides to this. I grew up hiking in the dessert and foothills of Southern California where many large extremly old junipers thrive. Now, many of those trees are gone due to forest fire. In some cases, digging them up has safed them.

 

[PonderingSage:]

I haven't really come across a common juniper worth collecting. Most seem too sprawling and straight branched. With their track record of collectability it hardly seems worth it for me…especially when l can find awesome western juniper.
Maybe, l just haven't seen a good one yet.

Also, l saw the video posted a while ago and revamped my misting system and it has made a world of difference in my survival rate for western juniper.

 

[231yama]

I’m in northern michigan and they’re all over the place, some have a cool style and ours have the darkest green foliage I see out of anything here. They love sand. Sand. I don’t see why people don’t use more sand. Sand is the soil here and all the native pines and other trees seem really happy to be in sand.
I put a hastily dug up JC yama back in native soil on my property in Sept, no brown yet it’s almost January.
They’re out in fields completely covered in snow for 3-4 months out of the year here. Gonna try a late winter collected also

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I put a hastily dug up JC yama back in native soil on my property in Sept, no brown yet it’s almost January.

They can live around six months with no roots. My record is 10 months with communis cuttings.
Keep in mind that it's winter, and that it's unlikely to go brown during dormancy because it's not using any water. Junipers can die without going brown as well. I'm trying to coin the term "Grey death" for those cases.

As for the sand.. It's not magic material that opposes gravity and it can and will sink to the bottom of your pot and clog it. Sand holds water very well if it's surrounded by pot walls yet it can dry in a matter of hours after which it either turns to dust or becomes rock hard and water can't penetrate it. Cool for seedlings and I'll happily add some sand to my pots for moss to and a lil bit of silicium.
Pines and junipers on the succession scale are "first colonizers" they don't love sand, they're not happy to be in sand, but they tolerate sand better than the other plant species which is why we see them there and why they get to grow old there.
If you'd be able to grow clones of each in both sand and organic soil, the organic soil always wins.
If you keep digging, you'll see that a bunch of those pines have serious tap roots that dig down deep, with no feeder roots anywhere close to the soil surface unless there's an organic layer near the base. That's why we never collect in sand. Those are trees to look at ;-)

Show me an inch of new growth on your communis and I'll happily crown you the communis guru though! If you find something we haven't thought of and it works, it's absolutely valuable!

 

[231yama]

Yea their roots are def something else. Beats species tho. Where I am right now most other wild com juniper I see has turned a super dark green/purple/bronze brown color, much different than all the pine greenery. So many old specimens here in pastures and stuff it’s worth learning more about them. I’ll keep updated.

 

[Paradox]

After reading this thread, I'm kinda glad I didn't buy the nice one I saw a few years ago and almost pulled the trigger on.

They seem kinda fussy and I don't need another fussy tree

 

[231yama]

I never thought I was onto anything novel with sand, just taking notice to where I see them in my environment, as they are very “common” here. They don’t seem to be growing in any of the organic soil beds I see around peoples houses or in peoples food plots tho. Just in the sand next to them.

There’s no soil under the sand where I’m at bud. It’s the same sand til china or clay. Great Lakes area. Maybe bonsai soil is too neutral for them, if they’re here they like acidic.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

This podcast speaks directly to collecting and keeping Common Juniper alive. These folks are the ones that provide Rocky Mountain Yamadori to the professionals.

They are straightforward and down to earth about the process…. It’s somewhere after 1/2 way.

Black Pondo Podcast

cheers
DSD sends