Thoughts on these hughes juniper

Baldemotions

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So I picked up three 7 gallon junipers from a landscape nursery for cheap. I have cleaned up two of them.

3junipers.jpg


Here are the two that I have cleaned up.

juniper-1.jpg


juni.jpg


Thoughts, suggestions, anything.
 

crust

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With this kind of nursery stock, in our area, my experience has been to gear everything to getting the plant transitioned from its solid block state into a bonsai soil, energize it, then style it. Personally I would not cut away to much green now and instead fertilize and dig into the roots next spring. For me styling a nursery plant while being root bound in nursery soil has always resulted in problems and disappointments later. That being said, trunk thinning without getting crazy, like you are doing may be no too detrimental. Cutting to a basic design seems as it will be pretty straight forward with these trunks.
 

Paradox

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I agree with Crust. I just repotted two similar ones I bought recently. Id rather get them into good soil and a good training pot right away and get them established and happy in there before doing any major styling.
I figure if they cant survive the repot, I dont waste anymore time on them.
 

Baldemotions

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I figure there will be some boxes made up for them this fall or next spring. They will probably sit in them for a couple of years before I touch them again.
 

october

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I think that some very important information needs to be mentioned here. The following is meant only to save you possible years of time and frustration. I am not sure it is worth putting years of effort into these trees, at least not really from the ones you posted. Training starts from the roots up, so we should start from there. If you put these in grow boxes for three years. After this time, you can put them in bonsai pots. However, they might not be able to go into a proportionate size pot right on the first repotting. So then it will be a few more years. Sometiems the stumps underneath may not allow you to ever really get them in proportionate size pots.

As far as the trees. Generally, good bonsai candidates are single trunk trees. Unless you are going for twin/triple trunk. However, there are certain criteria for them. The trees you have showed have multiple trunks of the same size. Which means that it will take much pruning to pull an image out of the material. Junipers sometimes do not like heavy pruning, you might have to do it in stages. Also, there doesn't seem to be any interior growth or growth close to the trunk. Basically, you will have to do some extreme wiring, grafting, wait for back budding or all three. Also, training boxes and pots cost money, soil costs money, all the wire it is going to take with these costs money.

I am, in no way, trying to discourage you from this project. Also, I have not seen the other trees. I just want you to be aware that it is going to be several years, take money and time for material that might not turn out to be good bonsai. Also, the longer we are in the art, the better we become. In 4-5 years, you might look at these and think, what am I doing here. I know, I spent many years training material that lead to nowhere. Now, I try to get the most out of my time and money with bonsai.

I hope is helpful.

Rob
 
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Vance Wood

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Do you know the botanical titles of these trees? Is there a sticker or tag from the nursery? Discovering for sure what species of Juniper you are dealing with can be half the battle.

Here is another suggestion: If you can take these trees out of their current containers and with your fingers only remove all of the loose crud from the top of the soil ball down to the point where you start to encounter roots, photographs with that pose will allow much better advise.
 
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Baldemotions

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They are Hughes Junipers. No tags on any of the trees where I picked them up from. Just the owners word.
I do agree that they are not great trees, but opening them up as I have done should promote healthier growth along with back budding?

If nothing else I payed $20 for three yard trees.
 

Vance Wood

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They are Hughes Junipers. No tags on any of the trees where I picked them up from. Just the owners word.
I do agree that they are not great trees, but opening them up as I have done should promote healthier growth along with back budding?

If nothing else I payed $20 for three yard trees.

They look like at least Juniperus Chinensis what-ever-strangeled-chickenensis. Good ol Chinese Juniper and most of them make for decent bonsai.
 

KennedyMarx

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Looks like there's a lot of opportunity for jining the lower branches on the second one and building the tree out of the top. Can you pull them out of the pots to get a look at the base and post more pics?
 

Vance Wood

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Refer to post #7, and do same. This is important if you are serious about continuing with these trees in a logical and intelligent manner.

According to the posted link these are not Chinese Junipers at all they are Juniperus Horizontalis Hughes. This link leads me to think that maybe they are mismarked. I have worked with Juniperus Horizontalis Wiltonii, Wilton's Blue Rug Juniper. Difficult to work with but worth the efforts to try. It is a native species to the USA.

http://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/1655/hughes-juniper/
 
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Baldemotions

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yeah I will pull them up and take a few pictures for you guys. Its a raining pretty good here today. So probably tomorrow.
 

garywood

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Baldman, not "very" far from you, in the northeast corner of Yellowstone and a little beyond there are places where 'horizontalis' and 'communis' have naturally crossed. If you are ever in the area take time to smell the roses.
 

Vance Wood

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Baldman, not "very" far from you, in the northeast corner of Yellowstone and a little beyond there are places where 'horizontalis' and 'communis' have naturally crossed. If you are ever in the area take time to smell the roses.

These trees I would like to see.
 

Vance Wood

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Actually I think your material is pretty decent. It needs a good deal of work to be sure but your not plugging a hole in the Grand Canyon either.
 

Baldemotions

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Any future styling pointers will be taken, but I really plan on working these into better soil and out of these pots, and try to get some good healthy growth going on the inside.

Probably just keep the crotches cleaned up. No pinching.
 

Vance Wood

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Any future styling pointers will be taken, but I really plan on working these into better soil and out of these pots, and try to get some good healthy growth going on the inside.

Probably just keep the crotches cleaned up. No pinching.

Probably a good idea for now. It is better to keep things healthy and growing while you contemplate design options for the future.
 
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