WTF. Help me save this shimpaku juniper

Hartinez

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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
Let me summarize. Your horticulture sucks. Be more patient. 😂

noted. 👍🏻
 

Dav4

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I’ve done what you’ve done to junipers many times in the past and I’ve never had problems like this. This looks fungal to me, and not related to wiring earlier this year. Don’t remove the wire as that’s just another insult. No clipping, the brown foliage will fall away just by gently rubbing the foliage between your fingers. As others have said, there’s nothing you can do about it now other than watch watering and continue to give good horticultural care. Good luck.
 

Hartinez

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I’ve done what you’ve done to junipers many times in the past and I’ve never had problems like this. This looks fungal to me, and not related to wiring earlier this year. Don’t remove the wire as that’s just another insult. No clipping, the brown foliage will fall away just by gently rubbing the foliage between your fingers. As others have said, there’s nothing you can do about it now other than watch watering and continue to give good horticultural care. Good luck.
@sorce I certainly felt I was within mine and the trees means on the work I did, and did nothing after the work other than water and fertilize the tree with organics. I did the same thing to other varieties of juniper at about the same time including another shimpaku as pictured above. Both trees grew very well, but the shimpakus growth was far more compact like broccoli and the others threw long shoots. This tree also grew and I figured this was a characteristic of the plants characteristics not a lack of vigor. Even with that though, I felt my watering was pretty spot on. even now, when the tree apparently is dry, I run a wooden chopstick and come up with a moist chopstick. I think the issue lies in the pot depth more than anything else. But again, my horticulture is decent at best. truly.
 

River's Edge

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One of the forgotten possible issues is the root ball density! Although we often work trees at the same time in the same manner, they can have different stages of root growth and root ball conditions. I would suspect a root issue, perhaps a compacted core staying too wet with better drainage on the outside edges masking the problem. Or simply different stages of recovery from previous root work.
One step I would take is to gently remove the dead foliage as suggested by running fingers through the foliage. Then I would trim out weak or dead areas remaining. Monitor the watering and watch the foliage for change. This step enables one to spot health changes easier and respond quicker.
Secondly, I would remove the tree from the pot carefully and examine the root ball without cutting any live roots or removing too much soil. This would give me a good idea of the situation. I would correct any rot or anaerobic sites before placing back in the pot.
Provide a location with good levels of light and air movement for recovery.
I would not use any additional treatment unless the damage continues after the above corrective measures are taken. I do not agree with removing the wire at this point, it would simply add additional stress or injury to the situation.
As we are approaching cooler temperatures I would consider providing this tree with additional winter protection if your location warrants.
Best of luck
 

PiñonJ

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Of course, the other issue we haven’t addressed is that, as a rule, with conifers, you shouldn’t do major root work and structural work in the same season. It’s definitely possible with nursery stock (I did it with spruces as a noob, with no problem), but each time we deviate from best practices, we’re rolling the dice. It was fine for some of your Shimps, but not this one.
 

sorce

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No offense to @Dav4 , but do you see how we have absolutely no evidence of your good horticultural care, contrary, we see the opposite, yet "continue to give good hort care" is subtly, from a respectable grower, convincing you you are doing so.

The phenomenon was brought up to realize and escape it, yet, it continues.

Already you have another recommendation of another good grower, (who I hope realizes this isn't an attack) suggesting a move we can't know will will be safe, yet know can be unsafe, rather than asking you the prior health questions necessary to understand the situation properly, in order to give proper advice to your Hort/work values.

We simply don't have enough information.

Yet, we do.

The tree was unhealthy to begin with, was overworked when it shouldn't have been touched, it should have been observed for patterns, and it hit the slow downward spiral we know as true, yet.
..... phenomenon.

So much of this is human phycology that few people understand well enough to not get angry and begin arguing.

Please see my rant against after care, proposing prior care is much more important, and when achieved, aftercare is unnecessary.

I never give aftercare, nothing dies.

I don't believe that other tree is healthy, it seems on a slower downward spiral.

Fuck a chopstick. Water like hell.

"Felt like" is the same red flag as "seems like".

There is an unknown truth still to be uncovered.

I'm not saying your horticultural care is poor, it is perfectly in line with what everyone else does.

Dumb shit.

We all want to see the excitement of a "demo" here, the before and after, this is a plague. It is more important to us than witnessing each other's patient observation.

Poison.

There is no way to summarize this important information.
Doing so is intentionally putting on blinders being other folks with blinders.

You must break away from all of this.

35 stands, 35 more, work, water like hell.
Stop spraying shit profilacticly. There is no profilactics in nature beyond health, and it has worked for millions of years.

I'm not bragging, my collection sucks, but I have never had any of these problems that couldn't be narrowed down to one specific cause, because the method allows for them to stay isolated.

Once we get into an unnecessary pattern of spraying, thinking overwatering exists, working things too hard, and not observing, we are doomed to failure.

I use a "wet" soil that doesn't "breathe", steadily keep my trees what would be considered "overwatered", and still haven't lost a tree without absolute knowledge of why, and it has never been this.

Water water water.

Please understand I ramble a lot with you because you are one of few that deserves to find the way.

Prior Care.

Stop listening to folks who don't know or question prior care. It is everything.

Sorce
 

LanceMac10

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Not all pots drain as equals!! 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

A few pots here on the ranch invariably kill whatever get's put into them!!

I usually "wet-down" new pots to look for any "low" spots that might allow water to pool and keep the soil a bit too moist.

As mentioned, pot seems just a bit too deep. Juniper pretty drought tolerant, see them grow in the shittiest soil, with too much shade, in front of the local library....



Trees in nature suffer just as much as a potted example, just so magnified in pot culture.
 

Hartinez

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Not all pots drain as equals!! 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

A few pots here on the ranch invariably kill whatever get's put into them!!

I usually "wet-down" new pots to look for any "low" spots that might allow water to pool and keep the soil a bit too moist.

As mentioned, pot seems just a bit too deep. Juniper pretty drought tolerant, see them grow in the shittiest soil, with too much shade, in front of the local library....



Trees in nature suffer just as much as a potted example, just so magnified in pot culture.
I drilled quite a few holes in the bottom of this one yesterday. I tilted it up towards those holes. It seemed to work wonders on my RMJ. Hoping for the same results here.
 

leatherback

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Prior Care.
100% agree. Work a tree to early, you have issues. Get a tree healthy, and they bounce back from wiring, repotting, trimming, whatever.
Main reason why plants that come to my garden nearly always get repotted in my substrate as soon as it is realistic to do so. That way I know what is in the pot, what the roots look like and.. that I can water as much as I want.
 

Hartinez

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100% agree. Work a tree to early, you have issues. Get a tree healthy, and they bounce back from wiring, repotting, trimming, whatever.
Main reason why plants that come to my garden nearly always get repotted in my substrate as soon as it is realistic to do so. That way I know what is in the pot, what the roots look like and.. that I can water as much as I want.
I dont entirely agree i worked it too early. But it could be part of it. Clearly my care is what’s got it in its state. I think it more has to do with the repot i did than anything else. I have a feeling the root ball has some issues And water is not getting where it needs to. Just a hunch though.
 
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Some collected junipers l have do this on occasion…I figure it’s just the tree figuring out what to keep and what to shed. I personally wouldn’t unwire as that would jostle the tree. Like others have said more mist and less water is what l would do.
Good luck.
(Sorry, just noticed this was an older thread)
 
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