Help identifying over shaded juniper.

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I'm not enough of a nursery insider to know whether the nursery selling 'Blaauw' in the Chicago area was paying or not. The whole plant patent racket is a "deep insider" topic. I do know in the USA the patent owner is responsible for the costs to enforce the patent. The court will support your rights, but you must do the identification of the violators of the patent. There are no "patent police", if you don't notice someone violating your patent, nobody else will press the issue on your behalf. Hence, Monsanto has staff that do nothing but enforce their rights. The little guy is on their own.

 

[Rivka]

Awesome!

Sorce

You’re right Source, it is an
awesome
source.
Signed,
Awesome

 

[Lazylightningny]

Ok, a sabina cultivar. Now we know.

 

[Lazylightningny]

Blaauw is a variety of chinensis, but not a hybrid as far as I know.

I've always seen it written as Juniperus x blaauw, indicating it's a hybrid of some sort, but I'm no botanist, so I can't say for sure.

 

[Rivka]

**should this be a new thread?
I'm not used to not having editing capabilities for the main post. and I'm not yet familiar with the mores of this group overall.

So my next tasks are to read up and learn. if any of you awfully smart kids care to point me to good threads, articles, or whatever on the following subjects I would be mightly thankful.

1. How to tell what parts of a lower trunk are already dead or still part of a lifeline. (this would be in the context of sorting our where I can put grafts in the future among just wanting to know)
2. All the ways I can support any possible back budding lower down once I get it out from under 20 years of pine needles. Under an airy outer layer of growth which already was leggy because of the shade, there is an igloo-like dome of nearly impenetrable long pine needles that completely closed of about half the volume of the plant in a dark dry world. It's clearing out nicely as is the amazing number of dead smaller branches. so soon there is going to be a lot more fresh air, moisture, and light into the core. Anything I can do to encourage nature back budding before i turn to self approach grafting, which I assume I will need to when push comes to shove.
3. Recommended reading on doing approach grafting from farther up on the same plant? Specific reading regarding Juniper Sabina if it behaves any differently from others. I have been reading a ton on approach grafting in general, I figure in the end I will be playing with that a lot. Moving the nice tips of these ludicrously long branches back down to the thick curves near the base.
4. If you had the luxury of time to prep a plant for digging up, what steps to do when? This plant is likely 40-60 years old based on the plant tag and when the houses on that street were built. So some sort of phased root reduction while it's in the ground I assume is the best idea. But i would love to dive into more of in-ground root pruning, specific fertilizing pre-transplant, and all. I have a hope that I can get this onto my own property by next Feb, near the end of the dormancy cycle in my area.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

It might be wise to do a reality check first: is this plant worth digging? Is it possible?
Consider the fact that it might not survive collection, so spending a lot of time on the 'if success, then..' part might lead to more disappointment.

Approach grafts can take multiple years to take hold, so that might be something to figure out after it's in a pot, while it's recovering for a year or two, or three.

There's plenty of time. First things first: can this tree become a reasonable bonsai? If so, fertilize heavily with some generic nutrients and see if you can trench some roots.

Finding live veins is best done in a pot too, by cleaning up the bark. Otherwise you'd have to spend a of couple hours in weird positions in between branches. Bjorn bjorholm has some videos on juniper maintenance where he explains how to do it, so does Ryan neil.

 

[Rivka]

It might be wise to do a reality check first: is this plant worth digging? Is it possible?

the best way for me to sort that out is to slowly go through the other things. This plant is certainly worth learning on and since it is in the side yard of a good neighbor and I can do whatever I wish with it, its a fantastic plant for me.

 

[Rivka]

My question are about things I would like to learn next, and in this case, I have a large readily available plant to learn on that does not particularly matter if it dies. So for the next few years, I'm going to use it to learn things on. some of the same things apply to other plants I have and would like to do more with.

I don't want to start reading deeper into a particular grafting technique right when I need to do ti, I want to read now so that I am knowledgeable by the time I go to use the info. The same can be said about most things.

So it's sweet that you are maybe trying to save me "the hassle" but I'm not asking if I should, I'm asking to be pointed to the bookshelf to start learning. I trust you are the type of person that will get that.

 

[Lazylightningny]

**should this be a new thread?
I'm not used to not having editing capabilities for the main post. and I'm not yet familiar with the mores of this group overall.

So my next tasks are to read up and learn. if any of you awfully smart kids care to point me to good threads, articles, or whatever on the following subjects I would be mightly thankful.

1. If you had the luxury of time to prep a plant for digging up, what steps to do when? This plant is likely 40-60 years old based on the plant tag and when the houses on that street were built. So some sort of phased root reduction while it's in the ground I assume is the best idea. But i would love to dive into more of in-ground root pruning, specific fertilizing pre-transplant, and all. I have a hope that I can get this onto my own property by next Feb, near the end of the dormancy cycle in my area.

You can prune it back some now. That will promote some back budding. You can also water and fertilize it in place throughout the growing season.

As for gradual root reduction, I've seen people dig a trench around the plant, then fill it back in, and the remaining roots fill in somewhat during the year before collection in late spring.

Best of luck.