What kind of juniper?

[Shamino]

I finally got around to some initial styling on this nursery find, labelled "Chinese Juniper." The first photo below shows it as is now and the second shows two of the plants in a wagon at the nursery. Anyone have any idea of what juniper this actually is?

 

[Shibui]

Junipers are notoriously difficult to ID. Many species look similar and many species also have different variants from different parts of their natural range. Some can look quite different from the 'normal' type of that species.
Chinese juniper is one of those that has a wide range and individual populations have been isolated on high mountains - possibly for millions of years so the trees in each isolated area have developed into quite different forms. Some forms have tight foliage and are make great bonsai. Others are more open and spreading and can be more difficult to tame as bonsai. Some grow taller and some are nearly prostrate.
Add human selection to the naturally varied forms and you have a big range of different forms from the same species.

Mistakes in ID and in labelling are not uncommon but I'd be happy to go with the nursery label and call yours Chinese juniper. It's not one of the popular bonsai types and I have no idea if it has a variety name but it will still be Ok for growing as bonsai.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

I finally got around to some initial styling on this nursery find, labelled "Chinese Juniper." The first photo below shows it as is now and the second shows two of the plants in a wagon at the nursery. Anyone have any idea of what juniper this actually is?

If it was a landscape nursery it likely is a Sargent’s juniper which is your generic shimpaku.

 

[rollwithak]

Almost looks like a version of some kind of carpet juniper…. Ground cover plants.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I'm pretty confident it's juniperus horizontalis var. Prince of wales.

This variety makes the fatter ropes compared to regular horizontalis, which is what I think I'm looking at.