San Jose Juniper

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Here is a San Jose juniper that I recently acquired.

I like the styling and it will be going into a proper pot come this spring. I plan on working on the pads and getting all the foliage to be needle insted of needle/scale. Curious to those with san jose's how the best way to get rid of the immature scale folage is?

I am curious to what everyone thinks about it? I just bought it so be harsh.
 

cray13

Sapling
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Imholte,

I believe the immature foliage is actually the needle foliage. The scale-like foliage is considered to be the mature foliage.

Juvenile needle foliage usually occurs when a juniper is stressed from severe pruning or other work.
 

darrellw

Mame
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Imholte,

I believe the immature foliage is actually the needle foliage. The scale-like foliage is considered to be the mature foliage.

Juvenile needle foliage usually occurs when a juniper is stressed from severe pruning or other work.

Cray is correct, however, on San Jose juniper, it is nearly impossible to get it all in scale foliage. So you either keep the scale foliage pinched back so that it is just needle, or graft on something else.

-Darrell
 

bonsai barry

Omono
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I hope you get a lot of enjoyment out of your new juniper, and learn a lot, too. In my opinion the greatest challenge you face is making the lower half of the tree as interesting as the top half. If it were mine, I think when I planted it in a pot, I plant the trunk at more of an angle to add some interest.


PS Did you buy this from George Muranaka?
 
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Yes this tree was grown and styled by Mr Muranaka...good guess..

Some branches are all scale and some are all needle. Hopefully I can get them all to match at some point. Hmmm that is what I first thought, needle being juvenile, but was told otherwise....interesting...I prefer the scale to the needle..

Barry I assume you are implying that the tree be planted more of and angle to the right and the top adjusted to compensate for the angle change.
 

BonsaiRic

Mame
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imholte,
Nice tree... I made some ROUGH virts:D It's fun to play in virtual world but will it work in real life?
 
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Cray is correct, however, on San Jose juniper, it is nearly impossible to get it all in scale foliage. So you either keep the scale foliage pinched back so that it is just needle, or graft on something else.

-Darrell

I may have been misinformed in the past, considering the source, but I thought the sharp foliage was the mature on San Jose. I do know that all of them I have seen have exclusively the needle type foliage.
 

darrellw

Mame
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I may have been misinformed in the past, considering the source, but I thought the sharp foliage was the mature on San Jose. I do know that all of them I have seen have exclusively the needle type foliage.

Just based on my observations (I have two), if you leave it alone for a year or two you can get about 25-50% of the scale foliage. Any cutting/pinching really causes the needle foliage to take over. So based on the reaction, I would classify the scale foliage as mature. But no matter how you classify it, I don't think you can get all scale foliage.

I should add that I don't fine the scale foliage all that attractive. It isn't bushy like a Shimpaku, it is kind of a wimpy little fan. Perhaps if you could pinch it back you could thicken it up, then the you just get more needle foliage. But I sure prefer working the scale foliage over the needle foliage!

-Darrell
 
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