Juniperus horizontalis 'Bar Harbor'

[amatbrewer]

This spring while on a trip (and drinking) I purchased this Juniper from a nursery. Something about it caught my eye. I moved it to a grow box, and after a few months of staring at it did an initial styling. Sadly I forgot to take any before pix.


Here is my (probably misguided) thinking on this:
Obviously the top is way out of balance. Most of that will be sacrificial, I just felt I had already done a LOT of pruning and wanted to leave a reasonable amount of untouched foliage. I did a bit of styling to it just for the hell of it. I am not sure if all of that greenery will lend strength to the plant, or simply take energy away from the cascading trunk.

I wired the cascading trunk to give it some motion and left foliage where I hope to develop pads. Maybe too many but I figure I could always remove some, and again wanted to leave some extra growth since I had pruned it back so severely. My thinking is that over the next few years I will be able to develop some pads while thickening the cascading trunk. I intentionally left the end of the trunk untouched to encourage more growth.
After looking at this again I also see I left it rather out of balance with so many shoots on the right side of the trunk, but I did not have a lot to work with to start.

FYI the screen on the top of the box allows me to lay the grow box on its side to encourage it to continue its horizontal growth and maintain more moisture (it is supposed to be 109F here this week).

One final note: I totally suck at wiring. I was never really tough correctly to start, and have developed some really bad habits on top of that. Constructive criticism is appreciated, but berating me over something I already know I do badly would be counterproductive.

Thanks in advance for any advice or comments.

 

[Carol 83]

(and drinking) I purchased this

That resembles several of my on-line purchases.....

 

[coh]

Biggest issue I immediately notice is how regular the movement is in that long cascading branch. It looks like a perfect sine wave, far too regular (thus doesn't look like something natural, looks man made). Also that branch is perfectly vertically oriented (with the curves superimposed) and vertical or horizontal lines tend to catch the eye. So, I'd look to put some more irregular movement into that section and push it a bit to the right or left, assuming you intend to keep that branch long term.

Wiring takes practice, get some branches from yard shrubs or trees, some aluminum (easy to remove/reuse) and just practice. Search for the Colin Lewis free tutorial on craftsy (I think) if you haven't seen it. I think one of Ryan Neil's mirai videos on wiring may be free but that is more detailed/advanced in my opinion, better to start with Colin's video.