Where do I begin?

JD_Wolfe

So...It's spring, I want to try something new. To this point I've grown nothing but deciduous trees and I thought that it might be fun try my hand at juniper. I went to my local nursery and found a what I thought was a fairly healthy, robust, Mint Julep Juniper (juniperus chinensis 'monlep').

From the exterior it looks pretty much like a bush. After digging into the undergrowth and noticed that one of the trunks is sort of interesting, but really doesn' t have much for branches. The remaing trunks (looks like about 5 altogether -- really hard to tell with all the growth) are not very interesting, but they are still relatively thin and could perhaps be wired into something interesting.

What I would really like to do is cut away some of the growth to get a better look at what I have to work with, but I'm concerned about A) eliminating potentially useful material and B) adversely affecting the health of the tree. Does anyone have any ideas on how to approach a bushy subject like this (particularly for a novice like myself)?

Right now it's in a plastic nursery pot awaiting transplant. I read somewhere, that it's not a bad idea to leave your first attempt with a new species in it's container for a season and just work on establishing a basic shape; if the tree survives the season then move it into a grow-box the following spring...What are your thoughts on this?

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waltr

Leaving it the current nursery pot is a good idea if you are going to do major styling work. This way the roots remain undisturbed to help the top recover.

I am not familiar with that variety of juniper so I do not know its back budding ability. Back budding is usually needed in these bushes to get foliage closer trunk so you can reduce the length of the branches. This might be the first thing you need to do (search and read on how to do this).

As to styling, first is to find the trunk line that will be your finial tree. If you have never done this it may that some studying (sketching the possibilities is very helpful). Then choose what will be your first branch, second branch etc. Last is to remove everything else and wire what's left.

Post a picture and we can give some specific help.

JD_Wolfe

Thanks for your response. I will check into this variety of juniperus chinensis; I took a sort of cursory web search and didn't turn up much but I'll keep looking.

It's kind of hard to tell right now what the branching really looks like(it's a really dense little shrub). The most interesting trunk is buried right in the centre of the foliage mass and is surrounded by peripheral trunks with all of their branches impeding my view. On the bright side, it appears that it's throwing branchlets from top to bottom on each trunk so cutting it back (hopefully) won't prove too problematic.

Thanks again,

Jeremy