Collected Utah Junipers

yenling83

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Just curious if anyone has any experience with Utah junipers? I know i've seen golden arrow bonsai selling a few. Any pics of Utah junipers that were show ready? Any main differnces from CA junipers?
 

yenling83

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sierra juniper blue foliage

Does anyone know why Sierra juniper foliage turns blue when collected? What percentage turn blue and in your expereince have you seen a lot of variation in how blue the foliage turns after collected?
 

PaulH

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I've collected Utah junipers both in Nevada and in California at the White Mountains. They are very similar to Californias, especially the adult foliage. The juvenile foliage tends to be more of a blue/gray color in my experience.
The other big difference is the smell. Calfornias have a nice junipery gin smell, Utahs smell like cat pee. If you are in doubt just take a sniff of the foliage on a hot sunny day.
Sorry, I don't have any pictures handy. I'll check on my computer at home tonight.
I don't know the reason for the color change in Sierra junipers but I suspect it is temperature related. All the Sierras I've seen around here in the Sacramento area are blue. I have one at my house though that I brought over from Bob Shimon at Mendocino Bonsai to use as a demo tree at our show this month. It is well established and is dark green. Maybe because Bob lives on the foggy coast.
Paul
 
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Eric Schrader

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I have collected Utah Junipers, small and large.

Some people do not like the smell of the foliage, but I think it smells fine and not at all like cat pee. In the circles that I run in it is regarded as very similar to Rocky Mountain juniper, more so than its similarities to Sierra, Western or California junipers. The foliage can be somewhat weepy when the tree grows out after being collected. Juvenile foliage can fall off for little to no reason.

One that I collected never went juvenile because it was in a rock pocket and I got nearly all the roots.

Training requires a lot of wiring. No pinching, you should allow the tips to grow and then cut back to a side branch to maintain a vigorous tree.

They seem to be easily infected by a fungus when kept in coastal (San Francisco's western half) conditions. But warmer areas don't seem to have the same issue.

A couple photos:

First: Me after having successfully hunted, trapped and skinned my prey. This tree is roughly 40" tall at the moment and doing great.

IMG_3214.jpg


And Second: A small Utah, collected about 4 years ago that I showed recently. It is about 16" tall.

IMG_0117.JPG
 

Eric Schrader

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I lived in San Francisco, CA for the last 10 years but just moved to Thousand Oaks, CA last month. I was collecting in the White Mountains east of Bishop, CA.
 
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Those are just lovely... Good to know they don't like the wet though... It would likely drown up here. ;)

I hope you'll record and share progress of the large one. I am especially interested in how you handle your dead wood...

Kindest regards,

Victrinia
 

bob shimon

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collecting junipers

I have collected both utah and sierra junipers for many years and they are not happy along the coast of Northern Calif where I live. A few years back I approached a friend about keeping them at his place after I get them established in my greenhouse. He lives in Sonoma County, which is about 40 miles inland, and the trees are very happy there. I have about 50 sierra junipers, and some have stayed green while others have turned blue. don't know why.
 

yenling83

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Glad to see you posting Bob-Nice article in Golden Statments! So interesting to me why some turn blue. I like when they turn really blue, think it looks nice. I have even seen one California juniper turn blue-not as blue as the sierra junipers, but it was still pretty blue-interesting.

Eric-Did you remove the bark from your Utah Juniper? I have three collected Utah's now and they are all doing great so far. One in particular has very thick bark. How's Thousand oaks? Are you still commuting to BIB meetings? Maybe we can car pool sometime-I'm a couple hours north of you right off the 101 in Nipomo, CA.
 
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jquast

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I've noticed that on the trees that I collected last fall that the new growth is comming from the branch tips while the interior foliage is dropping off. Is this normal for collected junipers in the season after collection?

Jeff
 

yenling83

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I've noticed that on the trees that I collected last fall that the new growth is comming from the branch tips while the interior foliage is dropping off. Is this normal for collected junipers in the season after collection?

Jeff

Yes that's normal. You can remove some of that old growth, will help to let more light in and keep the tree more healthly. Keep the new growth.
 

Brian Van Fleet

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The other big difference is the smell. Calfornias have a nice junipery gin smell, Utahs smell like cat pee. If you are in doubt just take a sniff of the foliage on a hot sunny day.
Paul

If I may hijack this thread for just a minute...

First to applaud PaulH for helping identify a tree by its smell.;)

Second to applaud all of the B-Nuts for accepting this as general practice.:cool:

I really thought I was the only one...and have waited (for years) to hear my wife ask, "are you smelling that tree?":confused:

Third, to say: there's NOTHING like the smell of a Kyokko Yatsabusa in the afternoon sun...:rolleyes:

Finally, that is a SMOKIN' yamadori juniper. Hopefully you don't run into the cat that peed on it out there :eek:
 

Eric Schrader

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bark

Yenling,

The bark on the large one is very thick and quite fibrous. So much so that some of it is dangling from the tree. I saw this on many larger trees that were in the area that I collected the tree... As for whether or not I would remove the bark, I don't think I would ever remove the majority of it, I would remove bark that is obviously falling off to clean up the trunk line, but not the well-attached stuff. I have never been a fan of oiled bark and chalked deadwood. But, to provide the contrast from the deadwood to the bark, which is light grey, I would use lime sulfur judiciously.

I made my first 6-hour-each-way commute last week to BIB. Not sure how often I'll be going but I have so many bonsai friends in the SF area that it's hard to not go back. I'll let you know when I'm on my way to and from for carpooling purposes.

TO is nice, much hotter than I am used to, I watered some of my trees four times the other day when it was about 85 degrees. The next day I went to Home Depot to get some sphagnum moss because watering 4 times per day is just not acceptable. I'm stressing about the water quality as mineral content including Sodium is about 5 times what it was in SF. I think I'm gettting a reverse osmosis system to use on the deciduous trees and any others that show sensitivity to mineral content.

FYI I'm mostly offline until Wednesday.
 
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