Dumb purchase?

brentwood

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Bored, wandered to old garden center and walked around their back lot.. found this section of old junipers, owner said $25 each... I was going to get one, but I got a second for no good reason...
They are old, bad shape, but they have so much character.. am I seeing something not there? Suggestions?
Thanks
Brent0BFAC8B8-C6E9-4BDE-AD25-03D85D70D003.jpeg
 

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Leo in N E Illinois

The Professor
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There is character in there. I'm sure if you were to clean these out, take a look at the nebari, then cover the nebari back up until it's time to expose it. Next year pot them to containers 4 inches deep, to ready them to transition to Bonsai pots. I bet you will get some nice back budding, that will allow you to create 2 nice trees.

But these need to be cleaned out, repotted, then allowed to recover a couple years, then they will have potential.
 

BuckeyeOne

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Damn!! Nice find!
I'm sure after a little cleanup you'll find some potential in those. Take your time and try and find the tree in there.
Remember. "Think tree Daniel San, Think tree!"
By the way, I see you're in Ohio. Where are you? I'm in Cleveland.
 

brentwood

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There is character in there. I'm sure if you were to clean these out, take a look at the nebari, then cover the nebari back up until it's time to expose it. Next year pot them to containers 4 inches deep, to ready them to transition to Bonsai pots. I bet you will get some nice back budding, that will allow you to create 2 nice trees.

But these need to be cleaned out, repotted, then allowed to recover a couple years, then they will have potential.
You said something I was hoping to hear, back budding... I figured they would need some time to rally, feel like they were on their way being mulch..
B
Damn!! Nice find!
I'm sure after a little cleanup you'll find some potential in those. Take your time and try and find the tree in there.
Remember. "Think tree Daniel San, Think tree!"
By the way, I see you're in Ohio. Where are you? I'm in Cleveland.
I'm down in Dayton, about an hour north of Cincinnati. If you were closer, I'd say go check out North Dayton garden, he has a dozen more at least. I may bring to the Columbus meeting tomorrow, get some opinions on care, gonna need some love - the one pot had been split a long time..
B
 

BuckeyeOne

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Thanks for the lead. Wish I was a little closer. They would be worth a trip.
Pretty much everything around Cleveland has dried up when it comes to clearance at the big boxes.
Your club membership may be asking for your services to grab some for them after they see yours!!
 

Forsoothe!

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I agree that there's gold in them thar thickets! I would caution you to not thin out that crap until you make yourself very familiar with that tangled interior. That may sound goofy, but there can be some contortions in there that you couldn't duplicate in years and years of growing and wiring. At the very least, there's good deadwood in there...
 

TN_Jim

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Are these Parsons, J. parsoni?
 

Sn0W

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I would buy them all, easy to flip them for big profit. I bet you could sale those 2 tomorrow for more than double what you paid. Give them a year to recover and you could get even more.
 

brentwood

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One for comparison. This one is wet so the bark looks really dark, but the foliage looked similar. View attachment 267322
The foliage looks right, but a lot of his plants had similar foliage, Nana and something he just called low spreading juniper. That back area seems to be his garden equivalent of my old carriage house upstairs storage - no idea why anything was up there... 😊
Brent
 

TN_Jim

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The foliage looks right, but a lot of his plants had similar foliage, Nana and something he just called low spreading juniper. That back area seems to be his garden equivalent of my old carriage house upstairs storage - no idea why anything was up there... 😊
Brent
Man thats the nook! That’s the place anymore at every nursery I gotta find!
Them funky ones that have some easily cured problem, or that retail customers leave last, and the wholesale folks do the same...hard to find sometimes but I’m convinced all places have!
 

Forsoothe!

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Not all places. Those that are not chain stores. The Mom & Pop nursery where the owners are in the business because they are gardeners and have been doing it a long time. Commercial chains turn over stuff or throw it out because if nobody bought it last season it just becomes a burden and it costs money to store and move it from here to there and it costs more to move it around next season and it costs to have an employee clean it up and it's not standard looking anymore. They only handle standard merchandise that has a predictable turnover so they don't carry the unusual cultivars either. It's cheaper to throw it in the dumpster, or mark it down low enough for someone to carry it away and write off the difference than to handle it again, and again. There's a standard dollar amount allotted for handling goods and every time an employee has to touch it again, that cost comes out of the bottom line. Never handle anything twice. That's good business.

But the old Mom & Pop family business doesn't operate that way. They will buy some stuff every year that's not ordinary in the trade just because they like interesting cultivars, like J. chinensis 'Parsonii', if that's what it is. If it doesn't sell, they'll put it out of sight and leave it there for years. They'll eventually sell it to someone like you. Or me. When you're out and about, keep your eye open for that nursery that's not on a main thoroughfare, that's been there a long time, age-worn, ~out of date~, small-ish. And when they ask what you're looking for, tell them. They'll probably make you pay more than market value, like the OP, but you'll get the better part of the deal.
 

leatherback

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Wow.. Nice find.

I am not a fan of the foliage, but those trunks.. You are talking yamadori-style. This will make some very good trees I am sure. So yeah, do go back and see whether you can make a deal and get them into selling you a bunch of them, at a 55% discount for cleaning out their old stock that not many people would want and bring them to your club. Bet many would want one of them.

For the rest of them.. Clean them out now, removing all dead foliage. Leave all the dead branches as they migh make nice yins in time to come. Come spring, start off by finding the nebaris, and move them into good substrate and fertilize well for a year. Plant them at angles where you think you might go when styling. Over summer open up the canopies by trimming back. Next fall you will have well-established healthy specimens that you can start styling.
 

brentwood

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Wow.. Nice find.

I am not a fan of the foliage, but those trunks.. You are talking yamadori-style. This will make some very good trees I am sure. So yeah, do go back and see whether you can make a deal and get them into selling you a bunch of them, at a 55% discount for cleaning out their old stock that not many people would want and bring them to your club. Bet many would want one of them.

For the rest of them.. Clean them out now, removing all dead foliage. Leave all the dead branches as they migh make nice yins in time to come. Come spring, start off by finding the nebaris, and move them into good substrate and fertilize well for a year. Plant them at angles where you think you might go when styling. Over summer open up the canopies by trimming back. Next fall you will have well-established healthy specimens that you can start styling.
I don't like that foliage either, but thank you, I agree about the trunks - nothing I have would look like that in 15 years...
B
 

Forsoothe!

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No on the foliage. TN_Jim's is all juvenile and may or may not be J.p.p. The OP shows mostly? mature foliage which makes a tree great when you get there, but it takes some age to get there. You're almost there with these trees.
 

sorce

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old Mom & Pop family business

I gotta add....

The greater Chicagoland area doesn't support these type of businesses. We have one Nursery like this that I know of and they won't sell anything at any discount because they can't afford to. Too small to have this kind of stuff too...no 'back room".

Sorce
 
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