are my junipers dying?

[jaycraig]

i got all 3 junipers shipped to me early winter. the tree in the 5 gallon pot was sent to me in a root ball then i potted it the next day. the other 2 were in some small pots and i reported them also maybe a month ago into bigger gallon pots. but now the foliage is dying back and i’m not sure what’s going on

 

[Housguy]

They don't look to bad, most of the tree has a nice green color on it, looks to be growing and trees will be selective in branches they want to support and what needs to go. I wouldn't worry about the browning on some of your branches as long as the tree looks healthy and growing. To be safe though, it wouldn't hurt to spray your trees with neem oil or something comparable that will take care of bugs or any other types of diseases. Root rot is a possibility, but you have soil that drains really well, so not as likely. Good luck!

 

[jaycraig]

that’s the thing there weren’t any signs of dying back before i repotted them so i’m thinking maybe the repotting process had something to do with it, and they seem to be getting worse by the day but i’ll keep an eye out. is neem oil a pesticide? never heard of it before

 

[M. Frary]

Should have repotted them in the proper season.
Fooling with roots on dormant junipers is risky at best.

 

[sorce]

If you're close enough to Boston to be getting that 20F on Monday, I'd gather it was a bit early to Repot, "a bit" being like 4 months.

The trouble with repotting when the ground is still cold, is there is no where to put them to keep the roots warm. Except for indoors, which just compounds the problem.

Worse, the small pot mass will heat up in the day and cool off at night.

Best to wait till July.

I also have a rather large problem with the size and consistency of soils we tend to use.
If that topsoil is the same throughout, it will fall into this category.

You almost can't water it enough till the akadama breaks down, it is about the same as a hydro soil.

Sorce

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Some look pretty rough. Wait until a little later (not July late) on the next repotting of the survivors. They don’t need to be repotted very often. In fact, somewhat root-bound junipers tend to be stronger.

 

[jaycraig]

Some look pretty rough. Wait until a little later (not July late) on the next repotting of the survivors. They don’t need to be repotted very often. In fact, somewhat root-bound junipers tend to be stronger.

my plan was to keep them in these pots to grow vigorously for a couple years then work on them

 

[jaycraig]

If you're close enough to Boston to be getting that 20F on Monday, I'd gather it was a bit early to Repot, "a bit" being like 4 months.

The trouble with repotting when the ground is still cold, is there is no where to put them to keep the roots warm. Except for indoors, which just compounds the problem.

Worse, the small pot mass will heat up in the day and cool off at night.

Best to wait till July.

I also have a rather large problem with the size and consistency of soils we tend to use.
If that topsoil is the same throughout, it will fall into this category.

You almost can't water it enough till the akadama breaks down, it is about the same as a hydro soil.

Sorce

i know summer is also a good time to repot but i thought late winter/ early spring the optimum time, no?

 

[sorce]

i know summer is also a good time to repot but i thought late winter/ early spring the optimum time, no?

I'm working on finding the actual latitude that separates spring from summer repotting success, I believe it exists with a "coastal caveat". Any microclimate really.

While learning about onions, (long day, short day) I realized we get about 3 more hours of sunlight then some folks down yonder midsummer.

I reckon this extra 1.5 hrs of sun in the cooler morning and evening is what allows for a much faster recovery up here if repotted in summer.

3 hours of more sun moves plants into an entirely new category eh, "part shade" is 3-4 hours full sun, "full sun" is printed as at least 6 hours. It's like a whole new health tax bracket for trees!

Our, at least my, trees come out of dormancy from the top down.
To me this means as soon as there is life atop, cross talk begins, except when we disturb the roots, we essentially take that phone off the line so the first call down to the roots is a busy signal, so the top keeps growing. Then by the time the roots pick up, they have a bad message, "we've been changed".

So the top tells the bottom to grow more, and the bottom is like, nah bruh, too cold, you're going to have to ditch some foilage, we can't support it.

Hence the death.

Sap, messages, are flowing much faster in summer, so even if we create an imbalance by repotting harshly, the tree can communicate it faster.

I believe the information communicated between tops and bottoms is way more complex than we think, like, the roots know everything about a branch, Everything, size, length, leaf number, turns, nodes, damage, age, direction, time each inch is shaded....etc ... everything.

We should consider cross talk this importantly.

Sorce