Junipers Look Sick

[bschanding]

I attended two workshops at the ABS/BCI symposium in Louisville last month. In each I worked on a species of Juniper: shimpaku & rocky mountain. Just today I've noticed that the shimpaku has two or three brown patches (each about 1 square inch in size) of dying foliage. Hadn't noticed that before. The rocky mountain juniper has some yellowing.

In the workshops we pruned, did some jin/shari work, but no repotting or anything. It's been somewhat rainy here lately, so maybe that's the problem. Other than that and the recent application of some homemade organic fertilizer cakes, I can't figure out what would be the problem. This is why I'm so scared to getting into conifers!

ANY ADVICE????

[MatsuBonsai]

Any chance for some pictures? Any wounds on the effected branches? Any cracks/breaks?

[lewisjk]

Also a note telling us where you live an where you are keeping the trees.

You might amend your profile to include general info on where you are.

[plantmanky]

I too would love to see a good picture of each plant. That certainly would help in diagnosis. Generally however, the first things that come to mind are 1) that brown patch on the shimpaku could be the result of an un-noticed break of the brown branch close to the branch that it is joined to. It's not on common to have that kind of thing go un-noticed when your working on them, only to have them brown out and die in a week or two which would be quite normal for a juniper. 2) I'm more concerned about the yellowing of the Rocky Mountain. My first inclination would be to ferterlize just like you did, but with a more substantial and quick acting fertilizer like general purpose Miracle-grow. Organic cakes are good but they are slow acting. If you did not do anything with the root's in the workshop I would not suspect it's anything significant at least yet. Most junipers are slow in showing stress. A picture would help a great deal.

Randy

[bschanding]

Hard to see the yellowing on the rocky mountain juniper with the sun on it like this. Honestly it isn't a large amount, but this little tuft I have on top is all I have for a top triangle pad in the future, so it makes me nervous.

Second picture shows one brown patch up close. I did notice that at least one of these branches did seem to be mostly severed from the main branch. I think now perhaps I might have done that with wiring under tight time limits.

Here is a whole-tree shot of the shimpaku. Not exactly the front view, but the best way to see the browning. It's right around the 2nd third of tree from the top.

[MatsuBonsai]

The yellowing on the RMJ looks to be weak growth, only 1 or two little "fingers". I usually remove this spindly growth in Spring to divert the energy to stronger growth that will benefit the tree more in the long run.

The brown on the shimpaku looks to be broken twigs/branches. Check to make sure that's the case and go ahead and remove the broken/dead section.

[bschanding]

Thanks for the replies. I do think the shimpaku browning was due to branches breaking during wiring.

I'll apply more fertilizer to the RMJ and hope it improves. In spring I guess I could remove any yellow stuff.

I appreciate the help.

[lewisjk]

You can remove the yellow branches now. They're dead already so their loss won't hurt the tree, and may actually benefit the tree.