Juniper Squamata 16yrs Old

[Pat093]

Heres a juniper I was given i couple of months ago.
Up untill this week i was never sure how to restyle it but now i think i have done the tree justice.
I was very top heavy before i took to it and a horrible repot job was done to it.
So i repotted the Juniper and got abut wiring the gem.
Im quite happy with it, as it is my first large scale wiring job and the most amount of wiring that i have done.
Unfortunately i cannot find the before shots which makes me annoyed but i hope yous like it.

Not sure what front to have, this?


Or this?

[Craig]

Pat, nice start mate , as you do more wiring you will get better and neater at it . If i could point a few things out for your consideration ;(1) you have wired some branches so they are lower than the branch below it, (2)try not to cross branches/levels like that, (3)The top of your tree is still very heavy and you should be thinking about removing more foliage from there,try to have shorter branches near the top and longer branches near the bottom,, (4) you have wired the main branches , now with thinner wires , try and wire out all the sub-branches and new growth aswell, so you can start to form some kind of foliage pads, just a couple of things to think about, hope you don't mind Pat, Nice start Pat

as a rough guide this needle juniper i rewired a few days ago, all the top branches had grown way longer than the bottom one's are now , i shortened them and rewired, i removed alot of foliage from the tree ,to give it a better look and start this season

100_3506juniper.JPG

100_3507juniback.JPG

[inSamsWorld]

Couple of really nice looking trees in this thread. That first one looks to have massive amounts of potential.

[Pat093]

thanks craig,
And i was thinking much the same about the top crown but im sacred to prune it back to hard incase i wreck it.
I was planning on growing the branches longer and slowly reduceing the crown, plus my style i have wired it to was roughly based on what i saw in nature one day haha, but the tree wasnt a juniper.

[Craig]

Pat,

Im quite happy with it, as it is my first large scale wiring job and the most amount of wiring that i have done.

you can just leave it for now and enjoy it, but it won't really make any progress to being a good tree if you do, at a minimum i would look at removing the thick branches from the top of the tree, cut them off alltogether only leaving about 10mm or so of the branch, this way new foliage will grow from the trunk either below or above the stubs you leave. Leave a crown of foliage at the top. OR , i would most likely reduce the overall hieght of the tree and train a new leader from which you can grow new branches.

IMG_3649.jpg

keeping it simple,I would prob train up the branch in red, trim the top off it a little and cut the trunk off at the blue line, and start from there, not sure what others would do , it also depends on what you see and or want from the tree,, good luck mate