Q's on "hard-working" some 2yr old nursery Junipers

[SU2]

I got these guys a couple years ago, haven't really done anything with them, they're finally about to be used (both, together, lashed to deadwood to start a Tanuki project)

Growth is well-underway here in FL, most of my trees are growing well and almost none are still dormant (the "most dormant" still have green buds at this point, and within a week there'll be none w/o visible green-from-distance!)

In placing these two Junipers around the tanuki-deadwood, I figure I'll need to remove some branches for fitment....so full branch-prunes, with the idea to NOT touch ANYTHING else (because, in my thinking, the branches - and trunks - are all still so thin that they need to 'run' and lengthen a while longer) but with "juvenile V mature" foliage, and special time-of-year constraints, and the fact they don't really indicate damage until too-late, I'm super hesitant to touch them....way too-used to my forgiving BC's, bougies/ficus/etc, don't wanna kill either of them!

Thanks a ton for any advice, if there's reason to prune any "to be kept" branches then of course I would (for instance, aggressive prunes OR removals of secondary branching from the shoots, would guess *no* removals but hard-prunes of secondaries may allow the start of ramification on secondary-branches w/o slowing the running/growing of the primary branches they originate from)

[was so sure these were purchased from same-batch, but looking at this photo is making me worry they're different variety Junipers, if anyone could confirm/deny their similarity/difference types it'd be greatly appreciated, would hate to setup the tanuki only to find they weren't same cultivar of Juniper ]


and FWIW I'm gonna be carving the following piece of deadwood/tanuki-wood for them, will be making deep grooves on either side of the more-bleached of the deadwood pieces, and placing one Juniper on each side into the grooving, to give an effect of a "split trunk":

[the 'lower', wider piece is my "juniper tanuki wood" ]

 

[Shibui]

Of course you can remove entire branches to fit your trees onto the driftwood. Removing up to half the foliage should not worry the trees. In fact it will probably concentrate the growth into the branchs left behind.
Whether to prune branches that are to be kept depends on a lot of factors. Pruning is essential before branches get long and bare because buds on bare wood are not reliable. aggressive pruning can cause foliage to revert to juvenile for a while as can be seen on your plants. It will return to scale foliage eventually but usually at the ends of the branches where new growth occurs.

I can't make out enough detail in the photo to guess if they are the same variety with differences caused by care or pruning or if they are actually different.

 

[SU2]

Of course you can remove entire branches to fit your trees onto the driftwood. Removing up to half the foliage should not worry the trees. In fact it will probably concentrate the growth into the branchs left behind.
Whether to prune branches that are to be kept depends on a lot of factors. Pruning is essential before branches get long and bare because buds on bare wood are not reliable. aggressive pruning can cause foliage to revert to juvenile for a while as can be seen on your plants. It will return to scale foliage eventually but usually at the ends of the branches where new growth occurs.

I can't make out enough detail in the photo to guess if they are the same variety with differences caused by care or pruning or if they are actually different.

Re species/cultivars...neither of those were touched in any way/shape/form in the past ~6mo at least, if that helps? The "raggedy looking one" just has like 50% of its limbs in compromised states (ie not full tissue, long "shari's" along many spots on trunk&limbs)

Reallly hoping they're same specie, though TBH I bet I could remove either and still have something fun here (more fun than my $5 juniper-in-pot that i had no idea how to proceed with )

I was pretty "extreme" with the planting-setup or "affixment to tanuki-wood", while I did use one Juniper on each side I ended-up kinda "putting one on its side, it fit the wood better that way but left it nearly horizontal in fact I draped some of its roots up&over the Tanuki-wood where they then intermingled with the other-side's-juniper's roots! Pics didn't really relay things well but since I took them:

^mid-job, should note I hadn't really done the root-pruning yet...hope I wasn't too-agro with it, I removed about 25% of the lowest roots (all thin, dangling feeders) before potting-up my frankenstein:

^left side of pic you can see my thumb, pointing at the side-ways Juniper that adorns the close/front side of the tanuki-wood here, the other side's piece is angled the other way (ie the far-right foliage is from the far-side's Juniper, lashed-into a groove on the far side of the tanuki-wood), the wood is the lighter piece I had and it ended up laid horizontally:
I cut grooves into it, and flattened its bottom a bit. The other piece got the Ficus M whips actually you can see that frankenstein behind the juniper in that ^3rd "finished" picture

I live <1/4mi from the beach in FL, driftwood is everywhere, plus I can make it -- what species are best? I know Live Oak is the densest wood but that /= longevity, for instance pine and juniper are only a fraction as dense/strong as Live Oak but obviously have much more far-lived deadwood... I can literally grab Bald Cypress, Pine, Juniper whatever branches and "make my own driftwood" but I don't know what's "the best" so still using these pieces of wood that were initially for bird-cages LOL

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Watch out for salts coming out of beach found driftwood. Make sure you soak them well, maybe even two times in separate buckets.