Shimpaku junipers- Ideas from others before I begin.

I put up some 3 gallon Shimpaku in 10 gallon containers back in 1989 and I am finally getting around to them.

I have a pretty good idea where I want to go with them but would like a few other ideas from others before I begin.

This one is 1st on the list. it's 25" tall.

Front

Nebari

Left

Back

Nebari-Right


TIA

Wow and you have 3 more. Way to have patience. Let me know if your looking to get rid of one. With patience like that I would think my request unlikely.

Let me know if your looking to get rid of one.

I may be willing to part with a few. I'm not getting any younger at 64......... I have some in the ground that have larger trunks but were never shaped early. They are in the landscape.

The shimpaku pictured has been cleaned out some by pruning most of the down-growing and up-growing small branches off.

The others are pretty dense but they are all different shapes.

I'll take some pictures of the others soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Here are three pics I took this Spring after I took them out of their shelter. You can see 2 of them, including the juniper in question on the right.

hi Gary,
you can tell by the lack of replies the material is challenging     Is your personal taste for compact and powerful or tall and elegant ?

The tree obviously doesn't have many low branches to wire a quick tree from but i see a nice compact tree by jinning branch one and everything above branch 2 (keeping branch 2 to make the whole tree from), or there is a potentially stunning literati with individual live veins feeding 3 or 4 main foliage areas - tall trunk, dropping branches etc

If you are into serious bending the trunk would go right down and right back up again, then there will be branches everywhere . These remind me of the type of competition material we worked with in the European final - challenging to start with but great trees hidden in there

cheers Marcus

Thanks Marcus.

or there is a potentially stunning literati with individual live veins feeding 3 or 4 main foliage areas - tall trunk, dropping branches etc.

I here you on both counts but I think I would choose the literati style or splay that lower branch out and bend and wire the top. It's hard to see in the photo but there are
a lot of branches on the top that can be brought down as hanging branches. We'll see.

These Shimpaku originally came from Iseli nursery on the West coast in Oregon. They are unusual in that they have really tough small, fat needles that grow relatively fast, especially
when planted in the ground. The foliage is much like Kishu but they grow much faster.  

Thanks for the comments.