Juniper Pickle

DogDude

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I am a beginner to Bonsai, and the other day I picked up two Bonsai from our local town nursery. Once I got home I noticed a problem the pot that the Juniper is in has no drainage holes! Can I repot this tree out of season or will the likelihood of it surviving even less. This is an indoor tree, because where I live in NJ we have issues with soil black mold, I already lost one outdoor bush to it. So I don't even entertain exotic outdoor plants or trees, when we bought the house I had a tree that looked like a Japanese style outdoor tree near my stairs coming up to the house and I felt so bad because it was dying, and I tried everything to bring it back with no luck. Come to find out from one of my neighbors that the soil were we live is out of whack every year because we live on top a slight mountain, which with the rains all the nutrients in the lawns tend to run all down hill. So the people at the bottom of the hill/mountain have awesome lawns while we at the top have dried looking grass and no matter how much you water it, the grass tends to stay the same. I went as far as hiring a lawn guy to try and get it green, such an epic failure. So every year in order to keep my grass alive I am putting down lime to get the PH back to normal levels.

I have watered the Juniper but not to the standard because of this lack of drainage, I am really worried about the tree getting root rot because of this. Would it be safe for me to do a repot out of season?
 
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I am a beginner to Bonsai, and the other day I picked up two Bonsai from our local town nursery. Once I got home I noticed a problem the pot that the Juniper is in has no drainage holes! Can I repot this tree out of season or will the likelihood of it surviving even less. This is an indoor tree, because where I live in NJ we have issues with soil black mold, I already lost one outdoor bush to it. So I don't even entertain exotic outdoor plants or trees, when we bought the house I had a tree that looked like a Japanese style outdoor tree near my stairs coming up to the house and I felt so bad because it was dying, and I tried everything to bring it back with no luck. Come to find out from one of my neighbors that the soil were we live is out of whack every year because we live on top a slight mountain, which with the rains all the nutrients in the lawns tend to run all down hill. So the people at the bottom of the hill/mountain have awesome lawns while we at the top have dried looking grass and no matter how much you water it, the grass tends to stay the same. I went as far as hiring a lawn guy to try and get it green, such an epic failure. So every year in order to keep my grass alive I am putting down lime to get the PH back to normal levels.

I have watered the Juniper but not to the standard because of this lack of drainage, I am really worried about the tree getting root rot because of this. Would it be safe for me to do a repot out of season?

It is an outdoor tree. :)

Solve for that before contemplating a repot.

If the tree is alive and looking healthy, I highly doubt repot is critical before Spring (best time for beginners).

Junipers can be repotted in fall safely in some regions, but... tree goes outside.
 

sorce

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Lawns are the biggest human blunders!

Vanity Bullshit. Waste of space. Elitist bullshit when slaves provided food.

Welcome to Crazy!

Grow cucumbers!

Pics!

Sorce
 
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Your beautiful little juniper has no correlation to your lawn.

Agree with Sorce re: cucumbers / general thoughts on lawns.
 

ShadyStump

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I was so looking forward to seeing a juniper in a pickle jar when I clicked on this.
Well, @sorce always seems to be a bit pickled, so I guess that counts.

If your tree is in a pot, what does your lawn have to do with anything?
Half the practice of bonsai is controlling the growing conditions of the tree in order to produce a desired effect. Soil microbes that might ruin your lawn will find your tree's pot a very different environment.

Also, just be careful with your watering, and the tree will be fine until spring.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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Nah, screw you lawn hating ragdolls! You clearly haven't lived in places that have been populated for over 600 years, that have been paved on pavement on pavement. The ground has been pounded by a million footsteps, compacted to a dense layer with nearly no life or water penetration.
I love my lawn. We're the only ones on the block that have a green backyard (for 6 months a year) in this concrete jungle. I get mushrooms, birds, worms, bees, beetles, ya know, living things.. It's an oasis for wildlife and it's 5 degrees C cooler in summer compared to the neighbors. Everyone around us has had persisting snail problems.. We didn't. We have hedgehogs. Everyone around us is plagued by mosquitos, we have sparrows. People around us don't have fruit bearing trees, we do. The bees come here, so do the bumblebees and the hover flies. And you guys are hating on that?! I'll wear that badge of vanity elitist bullshit with pride. I know what it does for my well being. And that smell of morning grass, freshly cut lawns, dang.. I can pick mushrooms in the morning and eat them as fresh as they get. What do you pick? Pebbles?! Pieces of brick?! Pfff. You people get the hell off my lawn!

You know what really sucks?! Fake lawns! Try to barbecue on one of those! Or change your oil, or put down a fire pit.. That's what we should hate as a global population. 200 kilograms of plastic dumped and spread out in your backyard to tickle that elitist vanity thingy. Ew.

Of course I'm hyperboling here. My weekend starts early today. I'm not here to pick a fight.

Repotting now is something I wouldn't do but drilling holes in a pot can be done pretty cheap. As for the lawn, sounds like a lack of water. Increase the organic content and you might just be able to have a green lawn like the people down low.. Water always goes down a slope and hardly ever goes up. So it's better to keep it there when it falls from the sky. Lawns don't need much food either, they're basically what happens naturally on barren soil. That's why so many people used to have them. Until they exchanged them for plastic and people started calling them names and assigning them attributes for caring for monocots. #Stoplawnshaming!
 

Japonicus

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A couple points here...
It's not out of season now to repot, especially to slip pot.

Your lawn can in fact harbor insects that could be detrimental to your juniper
but other than that the lawn is irrelative.

Third, get a pot the same size and some bonsai soil and wire, and have on hand...
1st post a picture!!!
Then, with a 1/4" masonry drill bit and a drill not in hammer mode
you can carefully drill the drainage holes you need.
If the pot cracks, you can either glue it back, or slip the root mass out, and wire into
your proper bonsai pot you have on hand of the same size.
 

_#1_

Omono
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This is an indoor tree
You will be pickeling your juniper if you keep it indoors.

You can pop it out the pot and place it in new pot similar or slightly larger pot and backfill with similar soil now if you want. Just try not to disturb the roots too much. Then outside in full morning sun where it can enjoy the lawn all day!

Least that's what I would do anyways.
 

DogDude

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Lawns are the biggest human blunders!

Vanity Bullshit. Waste of space. Elitist bullshit when slaves provided food.

Welcome to Crazy!

Grow cucumbers!

Pics!

Sorce
It had a lot of dead foliage at the bottom which I have cleaned out since this picture was taken. Many of the ends of the branches are bright green which I am assuming are new growth. However, I noticed something that I haven't seen in my book or in videos that I have watched. Let me take a picture and post it. The trunk near the soil looks like two trees, I did light investigation and this appears to be a branch off below the soil. Let me get the picture taken and posted so you can see what I am talking about.
 

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DogDude

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A couple points here...
It's not out of season now to repot, especially to slip pot.

Your lawn can in fact harbor insects that could be detrimental to your juniper
but other than that the lawn is irrelative.

Third, get a pot the same size and some bonsai soil and wire, and have on hand...
1st post a picture!!!
Then, with a 1/4" masonry drill bit and a drill not in hammer mode
you can carefully drill the drainage holes you need.
If the pot cracks, you can either glue it back, or slip the root mass out, and wire into
your proper bonsai pot you have on hand of the same size.
The thing I am not grasping here is as to what is going on at the trunk. It looks like two trees almost. I did some light investigating and noticed this is below the soil. Is it an off shoot of the main tree?
 

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DogDude

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Oh and another point
No it's not an indoor tree. Indoors will kill it faster than root rot or about as fast as freeze drying it.
I can put it outside, on my back deck it needs the outdoors. But our winters here get pretty brutal and humid sometimes (NJ).
 

Shibui

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#1 Juniper definitely won't survive long indoors.
#2 The current pot has straight sides so slipping the entire root mass out and into a real pot should be fairly easy and not invasive for the tree.
#3 It is not out of season repotting that causes problems it is out of season root pruning so even if the soil all falls off during slip potting the tree should survive. I would expect much of the soil to fall off during transplant. These mallsai are potted and sold really quick for fast turnover and a quick buck. They don't usually get a chance to settle into the pot before sale. I would not be surprised to find the original root ball still intact and surrounded by fresh soil mix because they just slip these trees out of the grow pot and straight into the sale pot and top up with extra soil and top with gravel. BTW these mass producers continue to produce these trees all year round. They do not have a repotting season because they know that simple transfer from one pot to another won't hurt a plant.
#5 On balance I think a pot with no holes will kill the tree more surely than transferring it to a new pot.

The thing I am not grasping here is as to what is going on at the trunk. It looks like two trees almost. I did some light investigating and noticed this is below the soil. Is it an off shoot of the main tree?
You won't know until you dig down far enough to find out. Twin trunk is probable if the original grower started the cutting with a low branch. Subsequent potting on has seen the tree put a little deeper in the new pot. Junipers are good at growing new roots so if it has been buried for long it is likely to have new roots growing from both trunks above the join.
Some growers put 2 plants in each pot as a sort of insurance policy. In case one dies they still have a saleable pot. It is common practice with azaleas for example. 2 in one pot will also bulk up the size of the top to make it saleable in half the time too so it is definitely possible your pot has 2 little junipers. Spring repot would find the truth or you can accept a twin trunk bonsai.

But our winters here get pretty brutal and humid sometimes (NJ).
Junipers are mostly mountain trees. They can cope with winters and your juniper is not a tender baby just because it is small. It is still a hardy tree. Some of the locals bonsai people will be able to guide you on how much protection is required for potted plants in those conditions.
 

rockm

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I can put it outside, on my back deck it needs the outdoors. But our winters here get pretty brutal and humid sometimes (NJ).
Your NJ winter is not brutal. It is temperate. Junipers can withstand any winter NJ throws at them. Overwintering them is not a big deal, simply heal the pot soil, tree and all into a mulch bed in late November. Make sure the bottom of the pot has an air pocket under it--by now you've drilled holes in the bottom of the pot so it will drain. the pocket underneath insures that drainage continues though the winter... push the mulch up and over the top of the pot--preferably an inch deep or so. Leave it til March or so. Make sure it doesn't dry out during the winter--this is unlikely if it is in a location that get rain/snow etc. Snow is your best overwintering friend--it provides moisture and protection from cold. It's basically insulation.

The trees in the photo below are not junipers, but they're not as cold hardy as junipers. They've stayed outside in the winter like this for the last 25 years...Bonsai (except tropical species like ficus, schefflera, etc) are NOT indoor trees. Keeping this tree inside will kill it.
 

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