Juniper Repotting for final styling

[Ozz80]

I have recently acquired two junipers from a local nursery with 3-4 inches of trunk thickness and I am thinking of doing the final styling without further development. My first step will be checking the nebari and transferring them to training pots. Then in autumn, I will make a small amount of pruning and wiring.

In this video @leatherback removes all of the nursery soil and most of the roots drastically on a Japanese maple.

Can I do this on a juniper, or should I retain a portion of soil to preserve good microorganisms?

Note: One of the junipers is horizontalis, the other is pfitzeriana aurea

 

[bwaynef]

I would never fully bareroot a juniper, or any conifer for that matter. There are several different ways to do it, but the one I've used to good effect is half-barerooting. One half of the rootball is barerooted, the other half is treated just like a normal repot. I describe (in laborious detail?) both in this thread: https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/repotting.41882/

 

[Ozz80]

I would never fully bareroot a juniper, or any conifer for that matter. There are several different ways to do it, but the one I've used to good effect is half-barerooting. One half of the rootball is barerooted, the other half is treated just like a normal repot. I describe (in laborious detail?) both in this thread: https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/repotting.41882/

Thanks for your warning, these junipers are really rare finds for me, local nurseries hold junipers with trunk thickness of a pencil only. It will really hurt if I kill them.

Great post btw, very detailed