Juniper ID and Styling Help

[Kudo]

Long story short, I bought this nursery stock juniper about 10 years ago on a 3 gallon pot to style it as a formal upright style bonsai. However it stayed untocuhed on my grandma's house and she planted it on a big cement pot which can be seen on the first attached picture. This month I decided to start its styling and after thinking I imagine a future bonsai as drawed on the last picture.

1. Which juniper species is this one?
2. Do you have any style suggestions?

Thank you!

 

[just.wing.it]

Interesting tree!
You'll need to post close up pictures of the foliage for ID assist.

 

[Kudo]

Thansk for the reply!

I didn't took a specific close up picture of the foliage, but I tried to make some close up crops from the first pic. Please, see if it helps.

 

[Cosmos]

I wouldn’t discard a strong, tapered upright trunk like this, even though junipers are not usually grown this way.

The foliage doesn’t look super healthy anyway, so bringing it back to 100% should be your goal for now.

 

[Kudo]

Cosmos,

I changed my mind about the upright style because as you close up on the trunk (attached picture) it is not perfectly straight and has same point of reverse tappering. I'm planning to make an air layer on this point.

Another thing I didn't tell is I cutted some branches I thought wasn't necessary in order to make the sun reach the interior parts and induce back budding. That is the reason it looks void on the inside. As you suggested, my plan is to feed it reasonably now with fertilizer and half bare root it on the next spring to make the transition to bonsai soil and let it grow freely to recover and have a greener foliage.

 

[Cosmos]

Thanks for the better picture of the trunk. I still think it is worth building around it. That fourth branch on the right looks like a potential new apex to me. I see why you would want to air-layer the top.

That first branch you made a virtual with is way more boring than the trunk to me. But I’ll let more experienced members offer precise suggestions.

 

[Kudo]

An update about this juniper. I fed it fertilizer and it responded well shooting new growth. The foliage is greener now.


As Cosmos suggested, thank you very much for your help by the way, I'm planning to train it on a slant style, maybe this little new shoot on the front can be the new apex on the future. It depends how well it will back bud on the upper fourth right branch. Until now, no new growth. I plan to do a Half bare rooting on the next spring (September where I live) to start changing it to bonsai soil.



Does anyone has any idea which species is this juniper? I took a closer photo of the new growth.



Thanks!

 

[Vance Wood]

It is most likely one of the Chinese Juniper cultivars, more specific than that is beyond my eyes.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I agree, most likely Juniperus chinensis, this species includes all the many varieties of Shimpaku. This group is good for bonsai. Junipers all need full sun or the foliage will be loose and open as it was in your early photos. Notice how new foliage that had more sun was much tighter. This is good.

 

[Kudo]

Thanks for the reply Vance and Leo.

It was very clumpy and I pruned some unwanted branches to make light enter the interior of inner branches and trunk. Seems like it worked

Here are same photos with a measuring tape. This different trunk angle show the right branches exits the trunk on a diagonal upright angle which I'm not satisfied with them, speccially the lower right branch. I think even if I notch the branch to bend it down, it wouldn't be a pleaseant horizontal branch.

=)

 

[Vance Wood]

The juvenile growth looks a lot like Squamatt.

 

[Kudo]

2020 update:
I've recently HBR the juniper and moved it to a wooden training box. I guess it is a bit oversized to this tree but when I was making it I was afraid the roots would't fit in a shallow container. My plan was to disturb as little as possible the old roots because I didn't know if there would be enough fine roots to keep the tree alive. In fact the center soil - original nursery soil/clay - was very dry and hard to remove, but the outer layer had plenty of roots. Maybe I should had pruned more the larger roots, but I was afraid and opted to go slowly and do it on the next reppoting.

It's been 2 weeks after HBR and the tree is getting full sun half of the day. So far so good.

 

[Kudo]

Leo recently posted on another thread suggesting that if you are not certain about what to do with your tree, let it grow and during the process think about posibilities of the bonsai design. It is a very wise advice!

As the time passed by, I also had another future plan for turning it into a bonsai based on Cosmos suggestion to use upper right branch as an apex.

 

[Kudo]

Hi all! Long time I didn't enter here.

Here are some updates:

Last year I did the other half HBR to remove old and compacted soil. It was a really tough task and my kids helped me =)



It really liked the new substrate. A lot of fine roots developed on the coarse and well drained soil (turface, leca and perlite)




Now it is growing strong throwing new shoots. This is how it is now:




There are a lot of straight and leggy branches I won't use on the final design and I just let them until now to keep as much foliage as possible for a fast recovery from the HBR process.




The options I am thinking are:
- More aggressive approach: Hard prune now (it is summer here where I live) and wait for a sign of recovery (new sprouts). If it recovers during this season, reduce roots on this year next spring to a smaller grow box and prepare for first styling next year autumn/winter;
- Middle aggressive: Prune some of unwanted branches, reducing not more than 1/3 or 1/2 of the foliage, and the other part in the next spring. Only reduce the roots on next year spring (Aug/Sep - 2023);
- More conservative: Wait until this year spring to prune not more than 1/2 of the foliage. Reduce the other part on next year spring (Aug/Sep - 2023) and reduce roots on 2024 autumn/winter.


I guess the middle approach would be a better approach and with relative low risk of loosing the tree. However, as this juniper seems to be very healthy, I was thinking about going aggressive, but I would like some input of you that already has done this kind of procedure.

Thanks!

 

[Cosmos]

Hi Kudo,

Thanks for the update, nice to revisit your great project juniper.

I think you've done your homework, the roots are addressed, the foliage looks really good and will power the tree through whatever styling operations you decide now.

This is what I'd do now if this were my tree:

1) start by jinning these 2 big low branches and get the deadwood started by carving littles slices in the trunk:



2) Then remove small inconsquential shoots like the one in red
3) And then move up the trunk, see how things look and then start thinking on a decision on the blue area, among other things. You'll need to address all areas where there are junctions of 3+ branches and where there are redundant concurrent branches like those two.

You could also remove the bark on the whole tree and see if there are patches of deadwood you were not aware of. I'll give the tree another feel completely too, even if you don't style now.

The good thing with a wooden box like the one the tree is in now is that you can very easily play with angles, slant the tree a certain way, keep it slanted for a week or two, see if you discover new things you like/dislike, etc.

 

[Kudo]

Cosmos, thank you very much for the response and guidance.

The red shoot you pointed out to remove I was thinking about letting it as a project backup. If ever the main branch I will use as the new leader and the new tree silhouette dies after the styling, I would have a lower branch to start over with the remaining trunk. As it is still very small, I decided to let it be.

The blue rectangle I decided to cut the upper branch and let only the lower one. As the picture is 2D, it is not possible to clearly see, but the lower one has a better position coming out of the trunk to be a first branch. The upper one is growing more towards the back of the tree.

So I understood you suggestion is to start removing unwanted branches following the final styling. My only concern is how much is too much. And I guess the answer it is really a depends on a lot of variables (tree health, local climate, wind and sun intensity, etc.) =)

 

[Cosmos]

With your climate in Brazil, I'm sure junipers can take a lot of abuse. I think you could get away with removing unwanted branches this year, your tree has a lot of foliage.

It'd be much more complicated in my climate (keep enough foliage to build resources for winter, etc.).

 

[Kudo]

This weekend I decided to take the plunge and cut some branches, especially the top ones that were shading the branch which is going to be the new leader.



After removing some branches I decided to not remove all unwanted branches because the new leader (red arrow pointing) does not seem to be as vigorous as the removed branches. And in fact, its foliage seems to be a more sparse. I think it is because it was not getting enough sun and, as a lower branch, the tree might have decided to focus energy on upper branches.




Let's see how it respond to the pruning and hope to increase foliage density on the new leader branch.

 

[Kudo]

An update on this juniper. It has grown well after the branches removal from last year and I also reduced more in the last summer. It was healthy and bushy. Ready to make the first styling





The silhouette became a bit wider than I wanted, but this juniper has a more lengthy foliage than a kishu or itoigawa and a should be a bigger bonsai. I pruned only the necessary unwanted branches and twigs, leaving as much as possible foliage to keep the tree healthy. Overall I was quite happy with the result. The photo also is not very good with the sunlight and shades making all branches and foliage pads indistinctable.

I decided to wait until next summer to work on the shari and maybe repot it to a smaller wooden box.