Leggy yamadori

[Loblolly90]

Hey guys! It’s been a long time since I’ve been on here-
I have a juniper tree that I collected. It has great deadwood and a very dramatic trunk, and I could not pass it up. It is growing well in my collection, but it was growing in a shady and damp area when I found it, and all of the branches are leggy and quite weak. It is active and has great roots, but I am trying to make a game-plan for ramification and branch thickening. Anyone out there have any clever ideas?

 

[plant_dr]

Do you have a picture?

 

[Loblolly90]

I can take one tomorrow.

 

[Loblolly90]

Do you have a picture?

Here are a few shots I squeezed off before work. It looks rough, but it could be a fun project

 

[Jester217300]

Heavy fertilizer and full sun. Give it two years and it should fill out significantly.

Looks like a nice tree, good literai potential.

 

[jeanluc83]

Approach graft down low?

The branches are long enough that you could graft it back onto it's self. If I were to go through the effort of grafting I would probably go with a better verity for the graft.

 

[plant_dr]

The pictures helped, thank you. I imagined something much more sparse when you said leggy. It could be just the 2D photo vs. real life though. As said above- This year focus on getting it really healthy with fertilizer and sun. Then you'll be able to either graft new foliage on or cut the existing stuff back to induce back budding. You'll also be able get creative with wiring to make the foliage appear closer to the trunk. But the first order of business is to get it super healthy so it can take the work you want to do later. That will also give you more options s to work with.

 

[Loblolly90]

The pictures helped, thank you. I imagined something much more sparse when you said leggy. It could be just the 2D photo vs. real life though. As said above- This year focus on getting it really healthy with fertilizer and sun. Then you'll be able to either graft new foliage on or cut the existing stuff back to induce back budding. You'll also be able get creative with wiring to make the foliage appear closer to the trunk. But the first order of business is to get it super healthy so it can take the work you want to do later. That will also give you more options s to work with.

Thank you so much!
I minimally wired the tree to allow slight shaping in order to ‘open up’ or expose as much of the foliage as I could, and have fertilized it for the spring. I also cleaned up the deadwood and removed all dead growth...
let the waiting game begin!