did i shock my juniper?

20 years ago

i am a newbie to bonsai and have generally never had a green thumb, although i have done quite a bit of homework.

i recently got a green mound juniper from a nursery (a dwarf variety that naturally grows low to the ground and out). it was overgrown but had a nice thick trunk to it and interesting side branches. anyway, i trimmed about 60 or 70 percent of the foliage away (it was just a mass of twisted brances and foliage), and repotted it. the repotting was difficult because it was rootbound, and i made an attempt to remove all the old soil by submurging it in water to loosen it. i have read that it is good to trim the roots back when you dramatically prune the top, as to "balance" the tree. a lot of the root hairs were broken off in trying to loosen it from the compacted soil, and i did some clipping on the longer roots. i estimate that it now has about half the roots it did originially.

it has been about 3 days sense this dramatic pruning and re-potting, and i've noticed that the brighter green new growth is starting to yellow and is turning brown. the heartier established needles are fine still. I'm afraid that i've shocked my tree by being too overzelous and cutting back too much at once. I think it needs to resettle and get some new root hairs growing.

is this a thing junipers bounce back from or is my tree slowly dying? is there somthing i can do to help it recover, or should i just leave it the hell alone?

btw, it is outside and gets direct morning sun only, but i could put it in a spot where it gets sun for most all day. not sure about that.

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Comments (4)

lucy
20 years ago
Hi.. don't know where to start here. It's a bad time of year to be pruning at all, let alone what you did. Repotting before giving the tree a chance to get used to its new home was not the best idea. Cutting/breaking roots like that - ditto - and BTW, the idea in bonsai USED to be that when you root pruned to fit the tree into a bonsai pot, you trimmed foliage 'to balance it' (not the other way around), but that too has gone by the wayside as not really being necessary, or very helpful unless the difference is very great - it's more a matter of learning which root mass affects which branches, etc. (you can trace that to some extent). As well, you didn't mention at all what you repotted into - what kind of soil mix, which is really important, and may well account for the yellowing, but then so could the pruning, amount of water you used altogether, etc. etc. And when you do repot BTW, light shade is indicated for weeks afterward, if not most of the whole season. So while I hate to rain on your enthusiasm, it's too bad you couldn't have asked first, 'done' later, but now it's just a matter of waiting til spring (if not obviously sooner) to see how things go. For the record, junipers need a mix of almost all gritty, gravelly stuff with no peat in there to hold onto water - the grit lets it flow right thru - and maybe just a little fir bark, but I have a feeling yours isn't quite there yet either. However, doing anything at all to your tree at this point will definitely cause even more stress, outweighing whatever you do - but go very easy on how often you water.
zoso1
Original Author
20 years ago
hmmmm... a little discouraged.

yeah, i just picked up some organic potting compost. no peat i dont think, but defenetly not gravelly. better draining then the stuff that was in it before. so is repotting/root pruning not normally done at the same time as top pruning? it really did need a re-pot, and i live in costal southern california where the difference between winter and summer is about 15-20 degrees, so i figured as it is an evergreen it wouldnt make all that much difference... but thats just my non-green thumb assumption, i could very well be wrong.

I did not put it into a bonsai pot, i put it back into its 3 gallon plastic nursery pot, but i trimmed about 2 inches off the top to make it slightly shallower.

so i should move it to a shadier spot, water it sparingly and repot it to a better draining mix in the spring?
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lucy
20 years ago
Shadier yes, but don't lessen the watering (if it were in the ground, I'd suggest watering more, but now I'm not sure it's a good idea). It's not that 'top' pruning can't be done at the same time, but you've stressed your tree otherwise so much and misunderstood the sequence of pruning (you'll learn) that it would have been better to wait a few wks at least to do it.
rjj1
20 years ago
I think it's always a good idea with people that aren't skilled yet with plants is to first work on keeping plants alive period. Learn what it takes to grow a plant. If you can't keep a stable growing plant going, how can you be successful with one that you have stressed with major pruning?

Once you have that down, then try a "little" pruning. There will be things you learn from this process. With this juniper, it may be what you "don't" do next time:-).

randy