fox’s Sabina Juniper progression

Oz_Fox

Sapling
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Location
Grand Rapids, MI
USDA Zone
5b
I found this Sabina juniper at the back of the nursery early this year, they only had one and it had been long neglected but I could see there was some character hiding underneath:
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Left it untouched for about a month before any reduction.
 

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6/10/23: First prune to clean up dead branches and remove any obvious branch issues:

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Top down:
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Actually 2 trees in the pot, reduced the smaller one fairly harshly to not block any of the main tree:
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7/24: starting to get the idea of where it’s going in the future
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8/13: put structural wires on the cascading branches, wasn’t going to touch it until next year but don’t want those nice interior branches to die off, looking good imo! No more work until next spring when I will repot and separate the two trees.
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Smaller tree cropped out 😍
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this looks great! I've heard many folks recommend nursery Sabinas on here. they seem much better than nursery J. chinensis. I'll be prowling my local nurseries for one this fall.

By the way, it's helpful if you add your location in your profile. Click on account details as shown in the picture below to get there.

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this looks great! I've heard many folks recommend nursery Sabinas on here. they seem much better than nursery J. chinensis. I'll be prowling my local nurseries for one this fall.

By the way, it's helpful if you add your location in your profile. Click on account details as shown in the picture below to get there.

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Thanks pandacular!! I’d have to agree from what I’ve seen, unless you’re going to a nursery that specializes in pre-bonsai, I have a tough time finding good J. chinensis stock. This one was hiding at the back, wish they had more!

Updated to add location, thank you for the tip!
 
Soooo, unrelated to the sabina... are you related to Oz, play bass, Stryper fan, or just plain coincidence? Because the name struck when I saw it but you seem too young to be him.

On the sabina, if you could wire that second thin trunk to play with the main one. Or could possibly be air layered and have a second tree.
 
Probably totally dependent on the nursery!! I will say the best Juniper my nursery has is a Shimpaku, currently planted in the ground, 4-5 ft tall. $499 price tag, if it’s still there in the spring maybe I’ll have them pot it up!
 
I like Sabina, but there are many varieties. I have 5 Scandia, and 1 Arcadia. I’ve found foliage to differ even within the same cultivar.
Yet to find a buffalo variety. Nice tree BTW.

One J chinensis that is very common in many basic nurseries is the Old gold variety.
Would recommend.
 
Probably totally dependent on the nursery!! I will say the best Juniper my nursery has is a Shimpaku, currently planted in the ground, 4-5 ft tall. $499 price tag, if it’s still there in the spring maybe I’ll have them pot it up!
Good progressive timelining you juniper. I like how you've approached it, as far as not hacking all the interior foliage out.
Are you planning on multiple cascading branches?

Wrangling the foliage is more of a challenge with these.
I strugle to convert mine into a believable style. I can say they take well to trunk carving and respond very well to hard cut backs early July.
 
One J chinensis that is very common in many basic nurseries is the Old gold variety.
Would recommend.
I have one and I hate it. Partially because I'm colorblind and the various hues of yellow are completely indistinguishable to me, and certainly unattractive. I haven't found it to take well to culture, but Ive also made a number of mistakes on it. If you were local to me, I'd be offering for you to take it off my hands!
 
I have one and I hate it. Partially because I'm colorblind and the various hues of yellow are completely indistinguishable to me, and certainly unattractive. I haven't found it to take well to culture, but Ive also made a number of mistakes on it. If you were local to me, I'd be offering for you to take it off my hands!
Oh man! Sorry to hear. I guess I’ve found the single one I own, to have pretty tight foliage in compare to the other common available varieties. As far as pot culture, you may be right. Only have one that I’ve styled but left in nursery can till next year. We will see
 
Glad to hear you're having success with it, it gives me hope. Now that it's recovered, it does seem to be growing in fast and dense. Honestly, the color alone makes it challenging for me. First time in my life I've felt like I need some of them colorblind glasses. I plan to keep it at least another year and see what happens, but it will be my first to go if I need to make space for future projects.

But that's enough derailment: i'm excited zbout this Sabina!!
 
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Glad to hear you're having success with it, it gives me hope. Now that it's recovered, it does seem to be growing in fast and dense. Honestly, the color alone makes it challenging for me. First time in my life I've felt like I need some of them colorblind glasses. I plan to keep it at least another year and see what happens, but it will be my first to go if I need to make space for future projects.
Feel your pain. My wife is color blind and is an architectural interior designer. She has to keep it pretty much secret to retain credibility.
 
Good progressive timelining you juniper. I like how you've approached it, as far as not hacking all the interior foliage out.
Are you planning on multiple cascading branches?

Wrangling the foliage is more of a challenge with these.
I strugle to convert mine into a believable style. I can say they take well to trunk carving and respond very well to hard cut backs early July.
Thank you! Searching nearby nurseries has become a hobby of mine and this has some of the best potential I’ve been able to find so I’m taking it verrry slow.

I’m planning on keeping the two main cascading branches I have wired depending on how their growth fills out, if one isn’t doing great I might jinn it. There’s actually a 3rd cascading branch which stops just above the pot-line that fills the gap of the main arch of the tree, somehow has branches that look like developed pads despite never being wired. I plan on working the main design around how these three branches progress and then reducing/jinn most of the top apart from an apex I’ll start forming from the best candidate.

I’ve been enjoying the heavily wired deadwood, even on small branches in some of Dan Robinson’s trees, I think the abundance of branches off the main trunk could lend well to that kind of design!
 
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