I feel your reply insinuates that I may have not given enough information or is that me reading into it...lol? A lot of my trees are still in nursery containers as that seems to be when i lose the most trees, after repotting. My plan is to reduce the rootball height by 30% and half bareroot late winter early spring next year. Are thinking I could get it down to that size pot in 1 season?
Sure, you can get those into smaller pots, and it's fine to nearly bare-root junipers. The big roots are usually what dictates pot size, so get rid of the big roots only, and keep
all the small feeder roots. The challenge I see with your example is that your tree has very little foliage, so the top is weak, and that means the roots aren't getting much 'photosynthetic encouragement'. If you really want to get that juni in a smaller nanban, let the foliage bulk up all year without pruning it, then you can reduce the roots next spring and it should be fine.
I'd start by sawing off the bottom half of the rootball, then combing out all the soil, working from the outside-in, and from the bottom-up. Remove the heavy roots that won't fit in a small pot, and keep all of the fine feeder roots you can. Get help if you're new to it. Junipers are forgiving when they are healthy and have plenty of foliage.
