The Juniper ‘Arlene’

[Adair M]

I agree, but it simply isn't possible with this particular pot.

Well, next time, take more off the bottom of the root ball. You don’t want downward growing roots, you want radial roots.

 

[sorce]

Looking great bro!

Slow Game.

Tiny changes!

Stay the path!

This has got to be one of my favorite pieces of rawish material.

Sorce

 

[0soyoung]

I just did a little trimming of last season's growth. I think it is getting better, but my photography is not (I need harsher light to capture the depth that is now in the design), but the silhouette is rather annoying - I am not trying to make a stalk of broccoli. I still think the spare trunk is a necessary part of accomplishing this, but it is still ... (what's the word? ). Sharis and jins (I ask myself rhetorically)?

 

[M. Frary]

I still think the spare trunk is a necessary part

I would keep it.
It's an integral part of the tree if you ask me
Lots of old trees have these on them. There's a white pine down the road with a big strong arm branch. If it didn't have it I wouldn't even notice it among the rest of the tall straight trees.

 

[just.wing.it]

Whew....this one is fuuuugly!
I like a good fugly tree now and then...

Before I mentioned jinning that trunk, but now I agree with @M. Frary .

It appears to have age...which is nice.

I see you have some wire on it...
What is your non-broccli plan?

 

[0soyoung]

Whew....this one is fuuuugly!
I like a good fugly tree now and then...

Before I mentioned jinning that trunk, but now I agree with @M. Frary .

It appears to have age...which is nice.

I see you have some wire on it...
What is your non-broccli plan?

The silhouette reminds me of Big Helmet

with two hands lifting the face shield.


My plan is just a hope to create something more interesting than broccoli or Big Helmet from this. Right now I have no idea, so it goes to the back of the bench and I will work on other things.

Someday ...
Maybe ...

 

[wireme]

The silhouette reminds me of Big Helmet

with two hands lifting the face shield.


My plan is just a hope to create something more interesting than broccoli or Big Helmet from this. Right now I have no idea, so it goes to the back of the bench and I will work on other things.

Someday ...
Maybe ...

It’s a sweet tree, it’ll be killer someday I bet. I wouldn’t put it back on the bench yet though. I think you should thin it out more and wire some more. You don’t need to know exactly what you’re going to do with every bit of it. It if you space things out for a better view it’ll be easier to see and imagine a nice future. I’ll bet you could dig in there and find a bunch of small branches and things the tree doesn’t really need. Clumpy stuff all coming from the same place kind of thing, thin’er down a bit (a lot even?) I say.

 

[0soyoung]

It’s a sweet tree, it’ll be killer someday I bet. I wouldn’t put it back on the bench yet though. I think you should thin it out more and wire some more. You don’t need to know exactly what you’re going to do with every bit of it. It if you space things out for a better view it’ll be easier to see and imagine a nice future. I’ll bet you could dig in there and find a bunch of small branches and things the tree doesn’t really need. Clumpy stuff all coming from the same place kind of thing, thin’er down a bit (a lot even?) I say.

Way to much foliage, you say?
Needs more empty space - like see through (windows/negative-space) or see more stems like a forest?

 

[wireme]

Way to much foliage, you say?
Needs more empty space - like see through (windows/negative-space) or see more stems like a forest?

Tough call, one or the other, I was thinking the first. More in and out and up and down to the exterior canopy could break up the Vader outline?
I feel like there’s so many branches coming out of the interior structure that it’s difficult to work some negative spaces into there now. Was wondering about maybe lopping off the branch circled in red, thinning the number of branches in yellow circles...or anyways simplifying the interior to make the exterior easier to design.
It does look better than the previous pic in any case, first pics seem to have disappeared?

 

[0soyoung]

Tough call, one or the other, I was thinking the first. More in and out and up and down to the exterior canopy could break up the Vader outline?
I feel like there’s so many branches coming out of the interior structure that it’s difficult to work some negative spaces into there now. Was wondering about maybe lopping off the branch circled in red, thinning the number of branches in yellow circles...or anyways simplifying the interior to make the exterior easier to design.
It does look better than the previous pic in any case, first pics seem to have disappeared?

Yah, I noticed that too. I don't know what happened to the previous pix. At any rate the whole progression is in a media album.

I thank you for your honest reactions, ideas, and direction. My eye was drawn to (offended by?) the same dense spots you circled. I don't see them sitting in front of the tree, but do in the pic (a reason I take pix). It helps me a lot to hear what you see, as I often get obsessed - the 'forest for the trees' thing.

With the burr of your prior post, I did spend a little time looking at it this afternoon. I'm convinced that the open spaces definitely are good things and you are strongly reinforcing that in my mind. Your second virt, I think, is suggesting a flatter canopy. I have been working to move the canopy toward the secondary trunk so that it (the secondary) would be better united with the rest of the tree (this goes back to the view with the secondary to the side) - I've done/over-done that to the point of broccoli again; never thought of 'flattening' it like you are suggesting.

This kind of 'thinking out loud' ('rocking the boat') is, on occasion, helpful for me - this is one such occasion.

Thanks, @wireme.

 

[sorce]

@0soyoung @wireme

I wonder if you wouldn't care to share each of your ideas of scale with this photo as such...

My man is a little big for me...

But I feel this initial sense of "scale" needs to be determined to understand a styling.

I feel like your definition of scale for this tree is very different.

Or maybe that Wireme is seeing a scale, and 0so is not.

This is a pretty giant tree in my eyes....
I think for Wireme too.

Trying to find more appropriate eye candy...them old cedars and stuff...
But this is kinda the scale I picture....with them stupid old thick subtrunks...


Sorce

 

[0soyoung]

 

[Crazy Diamond]

Sure its a juniper? for me looks like a Chamaecyparis elwoodi or something

 

[0soyoung]

Sure its a juniper? for me looks like a Chamaecyparis elwoodi or something

No, I'm not at all certain about just what it is.

After a few years playing with its foliage, I have come to seriously doubt that it is a juniper, but am still unable to ID it. Needless to say, I am dendrology challenged.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

For me its clearly a Chamaecyparis cultivar, probably a C. lawsoniana cultivar

 

[0soyoung]

For me its clearly a Chamaecyparis cultivar, probably a C. lawsoniana cultivar

It probably should be for me as well. Thank you for the help.

Somewhat embarrassingly, I had a C. lawsoniana 'blue surprise' in my landscape at the time Arlene gave this 'juniper' to me. I recall that I didn't think it compared favorably. Since I've seen that juvenile foliage is soft and not 'stickery' like it is on most, if not every juniper, I'd like to believe that I would have rechecked, had the blue surprise not gone to compost shortly thereafter.

Ignorance is not bliss, but mine is often too comfortable.


btw, you know Jose Acuna?
I've read his blog for many years.

 

[0soyoung]

It smiles a bit now, IMHO.

 

[0soyoung]

Let juniper Lawson cypress 'Arlene' just grow this year. Foliage now has a nice bluish tint (which is how it is distinguishable from broccoli).

 

[orangeyeoman]

Wow. This tree is something else.