Collecting Urban Juniper, Garden or Box?

I've been offered a large urban Juniper to collect and I have garden space to locate the tree in. Is it best to plant directly into the ground, or is it best to keep the tree containerized for recovery. It reads like a stupid question when I type it out, sorry, but none the less, my first go-round with a monster junie and I didn't see anyone recommend that Paul return his find to ground. That got me to thinking' maybe a box planting is prefered for some species. My personal inclination is towards open ground, but my experience is limited to only a couple of seasons of field growing and would value any opinions on where to go with an urban yamadori, garden or box? Thanks!

It's six in one and half a dozen in the other. You will give it more TLC in a box. It will have more freedom to grow in the ground.

Dunno how large it is, so don't know how large a box you'll need. It also depends on how much root you collect.

MY preference would be a box -- especially if you have been rough on the roots. But we are a continent apart, and the environment I know in your area is east of the Cascades (Kennewick-Pasco-Richland).

I say Box

You can control, soil, water and with winter coming upon all of us, its location. Thats if your lifting it now. If there is going to be root damage and I assume there would be no matter how carefully you work, I see no benefit to transference to the ground, for me the ground is for growing out specimens or for when I'm lazy or have run out of room up on the deck.
-Jay

I say pot it up as well, if you have a good place to keep it until spring. If you plant it out again, you will have to "collect" it again. You'll minimize the damage and stress to the tree by containerizing it from the get go.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I don't have any pics, I haven't actually seen the tree, I did see a pic on a phone thing, but it describes like this, it stands against the wall of a building so one side is not there. It measures four feet thick, six feet wide and seven to eight feet tall. It would be wider, but one side is cut at the walkway. The trunk is six to eight inches in diameter at ground level. I would imagine a large to extra-large box at least a four-man carry and though my wife thinks I'm superman, reality is I'm just a guy and I'm already nursing a hernia. Recollecting the tree from my own back yard doesn't sound too bad. When I plant out I make a hole specificly suited to whichever tree I'm planting, most trees do well in our native river bottom soil, this is conifer country, they love that old volcanic matter! Southwestern Or. is very different from the high plains of Southeastern Wa.. Love it out there, nice place to drive through on the way to Idaho, got some wild junies on that side of the Cascades. After a discussion today with the owner my feeling is that this tree will need alot cut and grow and praying for backbuds as all the foliage is on the extremities of the branches with the typical hollow core. We have a tenative dig day set for next Tuesday, more than likely I'll dig a hole, let the tree free-range for a few seasons while I do the cutting back, and then 'collect' the tree again and remove it to a training box. I will get some evidence when I do the deed. Who knows, growing in the concrete jungle this thing could be getting along on very little root mass. I'll keep you posted and thanks again for your most valued opinions!

Dying to see this beast. One thought occurred to me. I was taught by an older-timer-than-me that you might want to cut as close to the trunk as it will take to get it into a box/pot when you lift it again. Seems it stresses the tree the same each time, so better to do it one time than two.

I'm sorry to say you won't be seeing this one, on visiting the site in person to evaluate the situation of removal I immediately realized the tree was not a juniper, but a type of arborvatae and I deemed it unusable for our purpose and passed on it. Thanks again for the input on the subject.