Having Fun With The Juniper Procumbens
Part Two

By Thomas J. U.S.A.

In the last article I showed you some work primarily on what would be considered rough stock. This month I will show some work on stock bought at a bonsai nursery sold as prestyled junipers.

These next two trees were purchased at the same bonsai nursery as somewhat pre styled. This first one as you can see looks more like a shrub in a bonsai pot as I stated earlier.

I knew when I was looking it over before purchasing it, that there was a good tree in there. It would be up to me though to bring it out. Was I willing to put down some hard cash, as this wasn’t one of those four dollar one gallon Home Depot junipers, and was I brave enough also to do some major chopping to bring out this really good looking tree that was supposed to be lurking in there? Well I bit the bullet, laid down the cash, and in about an hour I was well on my way with my concave cutters and scissors to give this shrub in a bonsai pot a new look as a bonsai tree in a pot. This photo shows the first part of the work without any wiring or pinching, just branch removal.

After that everything just seemed to fall in place. There wasn’t that much wiring that needed to be done on this tree. The biggest part of the styling was pinching the mature foliage to shape. The same tree after eighteen months of pinching and some pruning to shape.
My only dissatisfaction with this tree to date, is that the mature foliage reverted back to juvenile type. Even so, the tree is still one of my favorites in my collection.

This next tree has also turned out better than I expected . The first picture was what was considered to be the front when I purchased the tree, already in a bonsai pot.

Even before I dug into my wallet to pay for the tree, I turned it forty five degrees and found the new front.

After that, I was pretty excited about getting started on this one. It’s a good thing I don’t live too far from the nursery, because within an hours time I was already into it. This photo shows the tree after its basic styling with no wiring being done, after about twenty minutes work.

This next photo shows about an hours worth of wiring and pinching and a bit more trimming and placed in a different pot. A really good cleaning up, and an eye for the correct front of the tree, brought out its beauty.

After eleven months of nothing more than pinching to shape, this is the end result. It's hard to believe that this is the same tree
as in the picture taken right after purchase.

As you read through the article, you probably noticed I used the term "pinch" quite often. This is the way you will shape your procumbens juniper after your initial cutting with bonsai scissors and usually concave cutters for thicker branches. These next two pictures shows two examples of these tools. There are quite a few different types of bonsai scissors used for different tasks. I like to use the long type pictured here so as to get inside the branch structure without any difficulty to do my clean up work which will need to be done periodically with these junipers.

This is the proper way to pinch your procumbens juniper, with the thumb and forefinger and using a slight twisting motion to remove the bud.

I hope I inspired you enough to at least consider trying one of these common junipers to add to your collection. I will also mention that they will take some work to keep them looking good because they are very hardy growers once they get going, and you will need to keep at them in order to keep them looking like trees in a pot, and not a shrub in a pot. I have more deciduous trees than I do junipers, but I spend more time with the junipers, not just because they require it, but I find them more fun to work with as I can see their progress almost on a daily basis. As for maintenance on these trees, you will need to fertilize often if you are using a well draining soil, which you should be doing anyway. I like to use an organic fertilizer on my trees since most are not high in nitrogen causing a lot of unneeded growth. Most organic fertilizers don't have trace minerals though and that's what will be needed to prevent your procumbens from yellowing out on the insides of the branches. Full sunlight won't be enough without the trace minerals, and that's why every now and then I give them a shot of either Chelated Iron, or a chemical fertilizer such as Miracid.

End of Part Two