Blue Pacific

Travis

I found a little Shore Juiper cultiver 'Blue Pacific'. The tips are still lush and green, It is planted in a small container about 1/2 gal. It doesn't seem to be root bound but the Juniper is rather leggy. There is new growth in the center. It has two trunks and they are a bit bigger than a standered pencial. The limbs it does have are cascading down. I won't need to prune it alot at all. I just need to know the best way to thicken up the trunk and limbs. Should I transplant it to a bigger growing container? Let grow as it will then prune back? what about the new growth in the center?
I live in Dallas Tx so the winters are real mild.

Thanks Travis

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TreeBay

Hi Travis,

The trunk will thicken in proportion to amount of the foliage it supports. So if you want it to grow more quickly, let one or several branches go unpruned.

You may want to reduce the tree to a single leader if you have a couple. the growth that goes into that second trunk will strengthen the root system, but it won't contribute much to thickening the remaining trunk.

A larger pot will allow the tree to grow more quickly. You probably want to avoid drastically overpotting it as this sometimes impedes growth. I don't know the reason why.

From what I remember of shore juniper, the branches were extremely flexible and it tends to spread low and hug the ground. You'll need to overcome this branching habit with wire and training.

Regards,

Matt

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Travis

Thanks Treebay.

The second leader kinda lops over to the wrong side and has some die back on it like it was wedged down between two containers. Can I propagate this juniper after I cut off the second leader?

Bonsainut

Travis,
_ Sounds like you been nursery scrounging, my favorite pastime. _The Shore juniper _is a slow process. _It is indeed very flexible and all _it wants to do is hug the ground. _My 85 year old bonsai sensei says "dont waste a you time. not gooda bonsai amaterial"
_ _I have never seen a really good one .Maybe yours will be the first _but I would suggest woking with the tried and true junipers to start with and leave the hard ones alone. Just trying to save you some grief!

__________________
Keep growing,---'Nut



Lethal Use of Farce

TreeBay

I don't mean to discourage you Travis from working with this tree, but if you want to propagate plants for bonsai, you are probably better off with a more bonsai-friendly species like chinese juniper. *Shimpaku juniper would be a very good choice to propagate from cuttings, or cultivars of the needle juniper, Juniperus foemina, for formal upright type trees.

In general, you can take small sprigs of 6month to 1 year old growth, treat with rooting hormone and strike in sterile sand or perlite. *They would probably need bottom heat and mist to get good success. *About the only way to propagate a whole branch is by a process called air layering. *You can read more about that by doing a search on air layer on the forum.

I think it would take a big, mature shore juniper to create a convincing bonsai. *Might be best to enjoy this one in the ground for a few years (or decades?). *They do make nice landscape groundcover. They do tend to sprawl all over and this is probably the reason for the multiple trunks, and more to come!

Regards,

Matt.

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Travis

Hmm. Seems I picked up something I am not ready for. Maybe I will over pot it and stake it up. Might be fun to play with. If I kill it oh-well.

So what about a green mound Juniper? I found one that is like 10 years old and has a trunk gerth of over 8 inches. It is in a 20 gal or so pot and is staked up. With some airlayering it could make about three nice bonsia. I didn't buy it because it was 189 bucks and the little shore juniper was only 5. Didn't want to throw away alot of money beofre I knew what I was getting into.


Travis.

The green mound can make some nice bonsai. It's another horizontal grower but the foliage is more compact with shorter internodes than the shore. I wouldn't give up on the blue pacific either. I've been working on one for a few years and it's coming along nicely. The problem will be the lack of good surface roots because I had to tilt the original planting angle about 90 degrees to make a single trunk informal upright out of it.

Tony