AusBonsai

During the AABC convention in 2012, we had several discussions on this topic.
Boon Manikativitipart stressed that we should not pinch, (or at least not the way we had been taught) almost everyone was surprised by how adamant Boon was.

Since then I have amended my ways, I still pinch a little but not aggressively and not all year round. I use scissors to thin and try to keep the healthiest growth. Pinching the growing tips will weaken the tree, using scissors on the growing tips will also weaken the tree and leave brown tips.

Leave the healthy growth and wire it into place, if it is too long use scissors to shorten back to an appropriate healthy tip. I use fingertips or tweezers to pinch out unwanted growth in the crotches of branches, old dead needles and very occasionally an untidy tip. My junipers have never been happier.

Hi Gerard,
I find with junis I tend to use different methods for shaping the foliage and generally it's a combination of plucking, pinching and scissors. It's just depends on the type of foliage that is to be shaped from reasonably open to quite dense and whether they are scale or needle foliage. Some times you get a better result by plucking and pinching than cropping with scissors, but scissors can give an almost instant shape in the first pruning, after which successive shaping is done by pinching. At the right time of the year you can avoid browning , generally I find late winter then new growth starts and then is only the wayward ones that need to be kept in line
Cheers Rod

I do the same as Gerard.

Scott got me onto it after he did a Boons intensive

Ken

So should I prune the unwanted top and bottom shoots off this, leaving the desirable shoots to grow freely, or should I leave them all to grow out and cut later?

For me if you are not refining, then I'd just let it pop for 1 or 2 periods and just pinch little over vigorous shoots

Since then I have amended my ways, I still pinch a little but not aggressively and not all year round. I use scissors to thin and try to keep the healthiest growth. Pinching the growing tips will weaken the tree, using scissors on the growing tips will also weaken the tree and leave brown tips.

This was discussed not long ago to with regard to squamata

viewtopic.php?f=131&t=9690&start=0

Ken