Chinese Juniper, brown needles - bonsaiTALK Community

26-Aug-2006

#11

Awesomepirate

Zatoichi

Join Date: Aug-2006

Location: London

Country: England, United Kingdom

Posts: 55

Quote:

Originally Posted by bonsaikc

Your tree looks very healthy. The light green growth looks like healthy new growth to me. The few brown needles are no problem. Just pinch them out or cut them if they are a little hard.

Ah! Thank you so much! The light greeness of the tips is all new in the past couple of days and I didn't know whether to be excited or sad. I think the tree looks quite healthy too.
The brown needles actually can't be plucked out because coming out of them are healthy green needles. That's what I mean - there are no standalone brown needles. There was some, but they were just old needles which came off easily with tweezers. What's left are really really hard almost twig like brown needles out of which lots of foliage is growing.

Good? Bad? Ugly?

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26-Aug-2006

#12

Awesomepirate

Zatoichi

Join Date: Aug-2006

Location: London

Country: England, United Kingdom

Posts: 55

Quote:

Originally Posted by bonsaikc

The growth inside is a sucker. It's growing at the base of a branch and will take strength from the branch. It's sharper because it is juvenile growth while the scale foliage is mature growth.

What should I do? Pinch it out? Let it grow?

26-Aug-2006	#13
bonsaikc Registered FedEx Sender Join Date: Jan-2004 Location: Ottawa, KS Country: USA USDA Zone: 5-6 AHS Heat Zone: 7 Posts: 1,683	Well if it's got green growing out of it, it's not needles, it's a branch! As a branch lignifies, it will show some vestigial needle-like brown bits. These will go away. I don't know if they are needles getting hard and dropping off, but don't worry about them. __________________ Sashi-no-eda.blogspot.com

27-Aug-2006	#14
Hasaki bonsaiTALK Expert Join Date: Jul-2004 Location: S.W. Ontario Country: Canada USDA Zone: Z5 AHS Heat Zone: ? Posts: 172	Brown foliage tips may be the result of a juniper having dried out. Inner foliage loss from lack of light. Spider mites can cause juniper browning. Green tips may be new foliage. Green tips(late August/soon turning to brown), on J. chinensis may be the formation of male pollen cones. Hasaki

27-Aug-2006

#15

sauce

Still Learning

Join Date: Aug-2004

Location: Florida

Country: USA

USDA Zone: 9

AHS Heat Zone: ?

Posts: 744

Quote:

Originally Posted by bonsaikc

Well if it's got green growing out of it, it's not needles, it's a branch! As a branch lignifies, it will show some vestigial needle-like brown bits.

Your juniper looks very healthy and I believe KCs explanation is right on. I experienced the same worries when I first acquired Junipers. I believe what you are seeing is branches growing and lignifying, some times the browning will lead to the belief that death is coming when in reality it is the growing process that you are witnessing.

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"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that's why they call it the present." Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) Thanks for the flag Zen!

27-Aug-2006	#16
Awesomepirate Zatoichi Join Date: Aug-2006 Location: London Country: England, United Kingdom Posts: 55	Thanks a lot guys! I was really worried that my Juniper was in ill-health. The reason is that when I look at a lot of show-quality specimens, I don't see any browning at all, and that kind of made me worry. It's actually quite exciting to see all this new growth happening in the first week itself! But the wonders of the internet mean you are able to look at my tree close up and tell me Thanks!

27-Aug-2006

#17

bonsaikc

Registered FedEx Sender

Join Date: Jan-2004

Location: Ottawa, KS

Country: USA

USDA Zone: 5-6

AHS Heat Zone: 7

Posts: 1,683

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hasaki

Brown foliage tips may be the result of a juniper having dried out. Inner foliage loss from lack of light. Spider mites can cause juniper browning. Green tips may be new foliage. Green tips(late August/soon turning to brown), on J. chinensis may be the formation of male pollen cones.

Hasaki

Hasaki, I know you have a good deal of knowledge in the subject. Just from looking at the photos you can easily see that this tree has not dried out nor been in any kind of stress. This is normal for these trees. Now another thing that can cause the very tips to brown is the type of pinching that is normally recommended. Pinching out the growing tips on a regular basis can cause browning of the tips. This is obviously not the case on this tree.

Male pollen cones are slightly bulbous and easily identified.

By the way, very nice job on the close-up photographs!

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