Can anyone identify what type of juniper this is please.

Leo in N E Illinois

The Professor
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It is a Juniper.

Not trying to be flip, but without information about its origin, or a name tag, the gods only know which of the dozens of juniper species, hybrids, or idiosyncratic horticultural cultivars of juniper this is.

First, which of the continents was this tree found on?
Come from a plant nursery?
Found in the wild? I mean someplace no human has ever planted junipers. Here the location really helps in identifying the species.
Found as a volunteer seedling as in your garden?

The juniper is showing a mix of scale and needle foliage. Many of the Juniperus chinensis junipers will do this. Some will only do it as a stress response, like shimpaku juniper. Some junipers pretty much always have a mix of foliage types - like San Jose Juniper.

The good news is that all junipers are treated more or less the same horticulturally, and for bonsai purposes pretty much all the junipers will work as bonsai.

Some of the North American native junipers are a little more difficult to work with than the Japanese and Chinese juniper species. But by and large assume this juniper is a cultivar or a naturalized seedling of Juniperus chinensis. It does resemble one of the J. chinensis varieties. But it could be anything.
 
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Hi, I bought it as an Itoigowa, from a nursery in France. The foliage looks too dark for an Itoigowa.
 

sorce

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I thought it was UK.

Never seen them Heinz cans anywhere else.

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce
 

Brian Van Fleet

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If you bought it as an Itoigawa, what reason do you have to believe it isn’t right?
I don’t see any reason to think it isn’t Itoigawa if that’s what you were told, but it looks like it has been raised in a lot of shade. Get it in some blazing all-day sun and it will tighten up and brighten up.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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What Brian said.

Juniper chinensis 'Itoigawa' would be the botanical name for the juniper.

It definitely needs more sun. For 'Itoigawa' the mixed juvenile & adult foliage is a sign you have not been giving it enough sun. That is a stress response. So move your juniper to a spot with more sun, and after a year or two, it will look more like "typical" 'Itoigawa'.
 

parhamr

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I’ve circled areas of mature foliage that look like they’re not getting enough light. See how they’re “long” and leggy and do not have much branching or division in the foliage? Junipers in full sun end up as a bright mess of densely divided foliage.
5C5AB15B-0C58-47AE-8F94-C6FC23719DEB.jpeg

The spiky, juvenile foliage also shows incredibly low sun exposure. That appears to me as etiolation.

Did you just buy this? Has it been indoors?
 
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