What's the recommended way to increase juniper pad density?

[Brian Van Fleet]

You guys.. see now I'm going to have to pinch one side, and cut the other.. and shear the back as a control..

Like this...

https://nebaribonsai.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/trimming-junipers-during-the-growing-season/
Here’s the same spot 6 months later, and it hadn’t begun to recover:


But we’re plowing old ground and minds won’t change, just the quality of the trees involved. I’ve said it for a long time: find someone who has trees you admire and do what they do. The rest becomes noise.

 

[music~maker]

Like this...
View attachment 167658 View attachment 167657
https://nebaribonsai.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/trimming-junipers-during-the-growing-season/
Here’s the same spot 6 months later, and it hadn’t begun to recover:
View attachment 167656

But we’re plowing old ground and minds won’t change, just the quality of the trees involved. I’ve said it for a long time: find someone who has trees you admire and do what they do. The rest becomes noise.

Not surprisingly, this basic strategy works for a lot of things. What you're essentially doing here is shortening the dominant branches, and letting everything else catch up. By not butchering it, you're keeping that area strong, and back budding naturally occurs at the same time, and the pad fills in. I use a similar strategy to build canopies on things like maples, boxwoods, hornbeams, elms, etc, etc, etc. and have gotten good results.

 

[Vance Wood]

Looks like spider mites.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Looks like spider mites.

What image are you referring to?

 

[Eric Group]

I mean wide-spread (massive?) removal of foliage tips. With procumbens it can be very much like literally mowing the grass - cutting all the tips off. With other varieties, maybe not so much.

Ramification will not occur without decapitating some apical meristems, just like omelets cannot be made without breaking a few eggs.

Do you have pictures of any well developed Bonsai that were created using this method?

 

[Vance Wood]

What image are you referring to?

I don't know how this remark got posted over here, I'm in the dark myself.

 

[Jarath]

I am interested.

 

[Vance Wood]

Here is one of my Junipers that I have been working on for more than 30 years derived from nursery material. It has been developed from the application of both clip and pinching techniques.