Juniperus 'aurea' means 'golden' juniper. The Latin name is always what counts. Anyhow, do heavy pruning on conifers when they're dormant, i.e. late fall/winter vs late winter/early spring (that's for deciduous trees). Why not just wait a month to be sure. The trunk seems a bit squat for windswept, but not undoable. If you don't like cascade, maybe don't buy Junipers :-)!

Thanks Larke! Think late October (say around the 25th) would be a fine time to work on this tree? This is basically what is hidden in all that foliage:

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Branch 1 will be trained to become the apex, and branch 2 will be a semi-cascade.

Great... but don't let the top part get too large, no more than 2/3 of the cascade because otherwise they'll be fighting each other for visual dominance and it won't look good. You could go for a cool pad or two on the top but a short 'trunk' for it.

So I pruned this thing today. And all I can say is that it looks BAD. There was a slingshot hidden under there. Now it does not look too well:

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I thought about removing that whole branch to the left, then jinning it. But, the foliage grows toward the camera and not off to the sides. The yellow is what I want to jin, and the red is the actual tree:

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Ryan

Hi - it's early a.m. here, but I'm not sure what the problem would be in jinning the longer trunk whether the foliage grows off to the sides or not, because the stump (jin) will be a stump in the end. However while the red trunk looks like it should be useful, its foliage will also grow all over the place and you'll have to keep it well trained and trimmed, not to mention having to work on the root system so the tree is more centered in the pot, if not even closer to the edge, rather than sitting back from it as it is now - which is not to say that it can't be done. Maybe a procumbens, with its 'tighter' foliage pattern might have been a better bet (and wouldn't necessarily cascade any more than this one anyhow). Just a tip - having bought a tree that turns out not to be a very good candidate for bonsai does not mean you have to drive yourself crazy trying to turn it into something to justify the purchase! You can have some fun trying, but don't get discouraged if it doesn't work out for you.

Thanks Larke! I meant the section that is in red is coming toward the camera, and it would take some seriously thick wire to bend it to go to the sides. I am just not a fan of that cascade branch. It has that long bare section which is just plain ugly. I'll jin the yellow and see what happens....