I think everytime you feel like working a tree, you should make 35 stands, then when you are finished, go back and ponder things some, then go make another 35 stands before actually working it.
The 3 thread run around for us tracing this things life is analogous to the run around you are getting trying to figure out the problem.
In the first thread you said they've had these sitting around for a while. Begs the question, why?
Oddly shallow root mass for the pot, why?
"As bought" photo shows no runners, no vigour.
At that point I would inspect the soil and potting situation to determine wether you will find vigour leaving it, or repotting it.
Once it regains vigour, move to the next step, be it repotting or structural wiring.
Once that shows vigorous runners, move to the next step, structural wiring or detail wiring.
Once that shows vigour....
"Seems Like" has been a viscous tell for me lately, I read a "seems like it recovered well", a "seemingly healthy"....
For me, "seems like" is only a giant red flag of uncertainty that should be pondered until what is actual is understood.
You have to break yourself free of this cycle.
There is a phenomena, where when one shows competence in styling, material selection, stand building or anything else, good folks here completely lose sight of the fact that this person is just sucking ass at horticulture.
This is why we are now talking about spraying a fungus free tree with fungicide that wasn't going to make it through this work, ever, and if not clouded by this phenomena, 3 threads, and lack of other pertinent information, we would be talking about what we all know to be true, but omit it, "junipers die slow deaths".
Besides the things that may have plagued this before you bought it, and the extensive work, I would like to better understand your watering habits.
I would seriously urge you to run this weight test, weigh it "dry", record.
Weigh it after regular watering, record.
Weigh it after a 3 hour soakdunk.
I believe you will find that you have been seriously underwatering.
We watch other folks do this extensive work all the time, but what can never really be understood when we see it is....
Previous health. Yes we can see a "before" picture, but there is never any information about how long it took to get to that before picture. Could have been one season, could have been 4 years.
This kinda relates the same to the after. We see the picture, hear a "left to recover for x", but never actually see how long it takes to recover.
Worst, we see junipers getting skinned to, what I consider a foolish minimum, but without understanding these other values, we can't understand if it's safe for our trees.
This is best understood for me, with simple values again.
Horticulture Care Value/Extense of Work.
It's the Hort Care Value we never see.
So for instance, your tree...ahem...seems, at a much less Extense of Work value, skinned being 0 untouched being 100.
You're at like a ?/60.
Which seems fine because we see work at ?/2.
(I'm thinking of professional work)
"Seems fine". It's the not knowing the Hort Care Value that leads us to consider some outside problem, fungus, blah....
In this we can see it's not an external problem, it is a problem with the Hort Care Value.
If recovery can be had at ?/2.
Clearly you must raise your Hort Care Value.
I think learning the patterns/rythym of your tree, and your care, is important to not go on this downward spiral.
In comparison to your purchase of an unhealthy tree, potted and wired inside of 2 years.
I repotted my shimp in 2017, and have only removed bits each following season, after it has told me it was healthy to do so.
5 years later it hasn't seen a lick of wire.
In this time I estimate I may have lost about 2% of it's style potential. That's not enough for me to need to go any faster.
It's also a community problem, that in one thread we completely know and understand how foolish "demos" are, but then we get into individual threads and get so excited by the styling we think it's a good idea to do it to our own trees.
There is absolutely no reason to go so fast except to show something off, I learned this long ago. Now threads like my shimp thread end up with 10 YouTube music videos and one trim.
Where others' threads have 10 trims and no YouTube music videos. Up your music video count!
No more "seems like" I'm being patient.
Be patient.
If we follow this work ethic of simply keeping potential problems at bay, we realize a continued health, move towards good design, and the patience just happens.
I measure my work by this value of, how much design potential am I losing by doing nothing?
If that number is low, doing nothing is fine. I do just enough work to keep that value low.
This is a much safer approach than these Hail Marys.
Sorce