Juniper 11 | Cooks' Trips

Juniper 11
Juniperus chinensis ‘Shimpaku’

FEBRUARY 5, 2023. This one went to the Jim Doyle workshop Saturday. It had a rough time last year after the repot. Getting the tree out of the too-small bag pot was a struggle, and several longish roots were damaged in the process. That wasn’t good, of course, and the result was the lower left branch just died in a few months. I removed it and sort of jinned the stub. and the strong branch at the back (actually three of four growing too close together), has spider mite damage. Jim talked to me about design thoughts, and I liked what he suggested: go ahead and remove the surviving branch on the left, continue the jinning work, go for the rough-texture of the bark, let the rear foliage heal from the spider mites (SPRAY REGULARLY), and thin some of the really healthy growth along the rest of the tree.

Along with removing the left branch and cleaning things up in general, work all remaining branches toward a silhouette that’s basically a cascade that stays within the outline of the pot, flowing down from the apex toward the soil line. Thinking about that now, I wonder if a semi-cascade going below the lip might eventually be what I have. Next repot tilt it toward the back just a little to show the trunk better (and maybe move the tree to the left in the pot), but go ahead now and remove the dead roots that are sticking up along the surface of the soil.

Before I left I asked John about air-layering the healthy branch I’ll remove. He said cutting it and rooting it would work better, so that’s what I’ll do when the weather gets warmer. Meanwhile, I have lots to o with it even now. Time to get to work on junipers while I’m in a repotting frenzy with the D-trees.

February 11, 2023

FEBRUARY 14, 2023. I finally got help on this one! I took it to the Jennifer Price workshop over the weekend, and now I feel really good about it. After she talked firmly to me about each of the three junipers I took to the workshop, I got it: if you repot a juniper, don’t do anything else to it for a year. That could explain a lot of problems I’ve had in the past. Now I know …. Anyway, I had tried all sorts of placement in the pot with this one. I leaned toward a cascade, others suggested some other positions, Kathy Shaner suggested keeping the potting angle as it was before and removing one specific branch and some of the extended jin at the top of the plant.

Jennifer’s idea was sort of between those, changing the front a little and the planting angle quite a bit. And the repot meant this time it went in the pot the other juniper had been in before this big repotting day (Juniper 10). Yay. That meant I bought only two pots that day instead of three. Nice. She also gave me some ideas for training new growth going through the next year, while at the same time telling me to not take a bit of foliage off of it until next year. That’s going to be hard after working to do what Kathy said and keep it clean, etc.

March 8, 2022. This is a new one I bought from John Walker last month. I got it because I can actually do OK with junipers, I wanted a larger plant than I have now, and we had a workshop with Jennifer Price coming up this month. Then I got a little dose of COVID and couldn’t go to the workshop this weekend. It’s going to be an interesting one to play with. It’s in a pot that’s too small, John had started some knife cuts to make a spiral around part of the trunk, there a real outcropping of branches at one point where the real foliage starts, and it’s sort of undecided as to what direction it’s growing in.