My first tree.....please help

Okay folks, please help. I have had this juniper for about 2 weeks now. This is my first tree. All I have done is clean it up. I have cut nothing off of it, what you see is what I got. I am finally brave enough to wire it. But I am stumped. I don't know if my pic's are good enough, but on the one side there are 2 branches very close together on both the top and bottom. If I put those on the right and use that as the front of my tree, I would like to bend the top up and make it stand a bit straighter and taller there. Would I get rid of one of those branches to do that? The rest on the left side could then be bent and moved to look more tree like. But what do I do with the 2 bottom branches on the right? Should I keep them? Remove one? Thanks.

I'm not sure what style you are imagining. Often it is very helpful, critical, that a drawing (paper or electronic) of the desired tree be made. So what style was the tree telling you it should be and have you done a drawing?

May be for the moment you should give this little nana a break

Just FYI: I have 3 of these and did the pruning more or less 2 months ago, one survive just fine but for the 2 other ones 1 of the 3 branches I let died so may be the best will be for you to wait and see if your juniper does its own natural selection of which part of the tree is to make it which isn't, after that the choice between what should stay what should go may be easier

DougB said:

I'm not sure what style you are imagining. Often it is very helpful, critical, that a drawing (paper or electronic) of the desired tree be made. So what style was the tree telling you it should be and have you done a drawing?

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Because trunk is naturally twisted I thought nejikan style. My thought was to bring the top on around and up, almost straight. That is why I asked if I should get rid of one on the top. Or do you think it would look right to bring them both up? The 2 sticking out on the side still have me stumped. I don't think it would look right to just cut them both off, so maybe keep the shorter one? As for making a drawing, lol, I can't even draw stick figures.

Alain said:

May be for the moment you should give this little nana a break

Just FYI: I have 3 of these and did the pruning more or less 2 months ago, one survive just fine but for the 2 other ones 1 of the 3 branches I let died so may be the best will be for you to wait and see if your juniper does its own natural selection of which part of the tree is to make it which isn't, after that the choice between what should stay what should go may be easier

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I cleaned it up as soon as I got it home, so by the time I finally feel confident enough to do this it will have had a good rest. When I bought it the owner of the center did tell me to not get in a hurry with it.

I think with the overall design you may want to lose the 2 bottom branches eventually but right now, I would let it rest. Remember, you are playing with an artistic medium that has to live first and foremost and you have already removed a lot of foliage. Let it rest and regain strength over the next 9-12 months and then you can give it the next "hacking" to bring the shape into submission to the shape that you want. The one sure way to kill a juniper is remove too much foliage in 1 sitting.

Koda'sgrandma said:

I cleaned it up as soon as I got it home, so by the time I finally feel confident enough to do this it will have had a good rest. When I bought it the owner of the center did tell me to not get in a hurry with it.

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Yep but for juniper 'a good rest' may be till next spring