Question about late re-potting of Junipers.

I have a Juniper that I think might be holding to much moisture. It drains well but doesn't really dry out all together. The Juniper doesn't look like it's on deaths door or anything like that, but it doesn't look vigorous either. It has a few yellowish leaves here and there and some off color grey/green area's but still some fresh lively growth mostly on the tips and some on the interior branches etc...though not enough to look completely healthy. I rooted some from this same Juniper several years ago and ended up planting it in almost pure turface type material with a very small amount of crushed pine bark and it's very lush and vigorous and obviously very happy. And also my other Junipers planted in that mostly turface mixture are very healthy/vigorous. This one though is not doing well and I think it might be staying to wet. Is it to late to carefully remove the Juniper from the box, tease as much of the old soil out as I can, being careful not to disturb the roots to much, and replace it with a more free draining turface material like is in my other Junipers? OR I was thinking if the situation deteriorated, I could just plant the Juniper out in my garden and let it recover. Wonder what I should do with it? any ideas? I live in Zone 8b near the Gulf Coast Alabama USA.

I've re-potted junipers in late April here in North GA, where the temps were in the 80's F, and had no issues. So, I'd think you'll be ok going forward, but you'll need good aftercare...keep the tree in morning sun only for several weeks after the re-pot, careful watering to make sure the soil stays moist but not sodden, etc. Also, I'd check for spider mites...grey foliage on a juniper sounds suspicious. Good luck.

I hadn't thought of spider mites, I'll check for them.

Another thing I just thought about is that the wooden cedar box it's in is getting old and it's kind of rotting. I thought I could get another year out of it but it occurred to me that it may be holding to much moisture and causing the problem. I guess I'll build a new box for it and try that. We'll see what happens. Thanks again.

Making the entire bottom of the box out of mesh will help with the drainage. I am partial to 1/4" (6 mm) hardware cloth/screen myself. - Marty

I have screens in the bottom of the boxes I use to grow pre-bonsai. Open slats and screen on top. I carefully removed this juniper to inspect the roots and I could see there was a lot of fine organic sediment laying on the screen surface that I think was restricting the drainage making it stay to wet. Maybe I used to small organic material originally or maybe what I used broke down into a fine sediment or something. Anyway, I replaced the screen with a new piece and placed a thin layer of turface on it encourage free drainage and replaced the juniper. The juniper looked better right away and seems to be improving every day. I think that will work until a more thorough re-potting next season. We shall see.

Thanks for the help.