47 year old collected juniper

[Fi5ch]

On 8/23 I went by a house that will be demolished next week and paid $20 to dig out this juniper. I'm pretty sure it is an ERC/Juniperus Virginian, and likely ~47 years old as the house was built in 1977. I know that ERC gets a lot of grief as bonsai, but the 5" twisted trunks and tons of deadwood appealed to me. It was relatively easy to dig up given the size/weight and came out with a 25'x20" rootball in garden soil, and for perspective the grow box I built is 30"x22". I didn't have any bonsai soil on hand so its in a mix of organic soil & peat with a small amount of pumice. My plan is to let it get morning sun and shade in the afternoon, and see if it lives giving the time of year I collected it. All I have done is to thin it out by removing any dead or unhealthy branches. This is by far the most ambitious yardadori I've dug out and would love to hear any thoughts or experiences with this species.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Nice score. Keep in shade, mist foliage each time you go look at it. Water when the top 1/4 of the soil is dry. Don’t let it move at all.
Likely this is a Parsons or Prostrata and not an ERC.

 

[Esolin]

Sweet tree! Yes, keep it misted. Fingers crossed it survives.You can always graft later for better foliage.

 

[Joelshack2362]

Very nice!

 

[Fi5ch]

FWIW 95% of the foliage is mature scale, very little sharp immature needles exist. Also thanks for the misting tip; I don't have much experience with junipers and wasn't sure whether that was the way to go.

 

[Brain Treez]

I keep my eye on demolition permits for yardadori (with the advantage of working in the building department in my city), but I have yet to find something this promising. Nice!

 

[Deleted member 47471]

All advice above is good

1 aspect of potential style option out of 1,000+ could be:

Using what the tree gives you, altering (angling future jins) and/or sculpting ️ This tree has gifted you the bones and structure to make insanely beautiful deadwood and Jins, wow! What a

 

[Fi5ch]

Here is a spring update on this large collected ERC. It looks like it survived but didn't thrive, with lots of browning & dry foliage and very little new growth. It spent th winter in the shade out of the wind, and my thought is to remove any dead or brown foliage and put it in full sun to see if it starts to recover for another year. Any thoughts?

 

[Ruddigger]

Looks pretty good for a collected juniper less than one year in. Wait until you see strong growth to do any work. You can remove dead and weak foliage to help its health improve faster.

 

[Fi5ch]

Is it OK to put it in full sun facing SW ~noon to 6:00 pm at this point?

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Is it OK to put it in full sun facing SW ~noon to 6:00 pm at this point?

I would, as @Ruddigger said, it looks pretty good. Never seen an ERC with a gnarly trunk like that…wondering if it might be prostrata or parsonii.