New common Juniper from the Ishii's

[raydomz]

More specifically, this is a juniper that came from my local nursery by way of Dale Cochoy's collection and Mas Ishii's nursery before him.

It has sat idle for the past two years with only minor pruning having been done. I am glad to add it to my collection and help get it back on track. The first step for is getting rid of the dead needles and trimming away small interior branches that have since died.

Does anyone have experience with these common junipers? Anything outside of normal needle juniper care that I should be aware of?

Dale had done a great job with growing this little guy out so wiring it is going to be a blast

I forgot to mention the April Grigsby pot...it is the first pot of hers I own and the quality is incredible. That being said I'm hoping to get my hands on one of Dale's heavily textured pots for this next year.

 

[DougB]

Both tree and pot are exceptional. Thanks for posting and please keep us up to date on this tree.

 

[JudyB]

You'll have to post another shot after you take out the dead stuff, bet it cleans up real nice.
I do like the pot very much!

 

[Smoke]

This looks nice.

 

[raydomz]

After a long holiday weekend I was able to eek out some time to finish up the clean up and styling of this little juniper.

First things first:

I sat down with the tree the first day I got it, which was actually not the first time I had ever looked at the tree, and tried to make sense of the growth that had become leggy (a few key branches had become over 4" long.)
The ultimate goal, as you can see in the sketch is to bring that growth in over time to make a tighter crown. After wiring it I'm not sure that this will happen but we shall see.

One piece to note that is missing in this sketch is the bottom left branch.

After a couple of hours...

Things are still very rough and a few small tweaks have been made since taking these photos but I am very happy with the direction and am looking forward to refining some areas as the tree continues to grow.

The hardest thing to manage on this tree seems to be the large foliage (although I do love the look of it, almost similar to a blue spruce in color and size.)

 

[Neli]

Nice job! You should be proud!
How did you manage to make the last picture rotate? Please explain...it is a great idea.

 

[Poink88]

Nice job! You should be proud!
How did you manage to make the last picture rotate? Please explain...it is a great idea.

It is a GIF file. Check Google about it but basically a sequence of pics put together.

 

[Lazylightningny]

Excellent styling! It's gonna look awesome after it fills in.

 

[Neli]

Is GIF file loaded here like a normal picture?

 

[raydomz]

Nice job! You should be proud!
How did you manage to make the last picture rotate? Please explain...it is a great idea.

Thank you! It was fun to watch it come together.

Excellent styling! It's gonna look awesome after it fills in.

Thank you sir! I have since been talking with Mach5 about this tree and its future design. He presented a virt with even more of the lower branches removed..I'm not going to lie. I like it. A lot. But as we discussed, this is probably a few years down the road.

Is GIF file loaded here like a normal picture?

Hey Neli, yes. I use imgur.com to upload/share everything and you can just upload the gif, copy the

 

[Jester217300]

Nice tree! Is this one from Kurt? I've been making my way out there every so often, myself.

 

[KennedyMarx]

Looks really nice. Don't see needle junipers much. Peter Tea has an article on his blog about them if you need some info.

 

[raydomz]

Nice tree! Is this one from Kurt? I've been making my way out there every so often, myself.

It is! I had originally thought it sold after seeing it briefly two years ago. Low and behold Kurt had decided to keep it. I shared my interest in it with him and he was kind enough to let me purchase it from him.

Looks really nice. Don't see needle junipers much. Peter Tea has an article on his blog about them if you need some info.

Thank you. Sitting on the bench it has a distinctly different feel to my other junipers. It makes me want to only have needle junis. Thanks for the Peter Tea mention, I have checked out that post. Very informative!

 

[berobinson82]

Did you use photoshop to create the gif or an online tool?

The tree is excellent. I like it as it is and also where you want to take it.

 

[raydomz]

Did you use photoshop to create the gif or an online tool?

The tree is excellent. I like it as it is and also where you want to take it.

I just use photoshop to create it. They've beefed up the animation tools with the CC version so it is a breeze.

 

[coh]

Nice work on the juniper!

For anyone who is curious...probably more than you'll ever need (or want) to know about animated gifs:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392701,00.asp

 

[MACH5]

I agree with everyone. You did a really great job with its first styling Ray!! Very nice tree and love the sketch as well!

 

[october]

Really like this tree. Shohin present different challenges than other trees. Especially thinner trunked shohin conifers. It becomes hard to keep the foliage/silhouette in scale.

Rob

 

[KennedyMarx]

I like the virt. Have you considered extending the deadwood from the Jin down the trunk eventually?

 

[raydomz]

Really like this tree. Shohin present different challenges than other trees. Especially thinner trunked shohin conifers. It becomes hard to keep the foliage/silhouette in scale.

Rob

Thanks October. I have a feeling this tree is going to be about constant growth checking. Luckily it looks like it buds back very well on old wood and getting rid of the leggy branches won't be an issue.

I like the virt. Have you considered extending the deadwood from the Jin down the trunk eventually?

Yes definitely. I wanted to sit with this for a bit before making the decision to take it all the way down to the base. I do think ultimately it needs to go there though.