Useful 11 Juniper Tree Care Tips Step By Step For Growth

Have you been craving wonderful scenery in your yard? Do not stress any further, we have here the best Juniper Tree Care tips, just cultivate Juniper shrubs in your yard. Juniper bushes and trees offer excellent additions to any environment, garden, or lawn.

Juniper shrubs may also be shaped into potted flowers (topiaries), which are excellent for providing focal points or establishing decorative borders. What used to be a decent tree might have become a wayward, oversized ogre or an unhealthy tree.

Now, what would you achieve with a juniper which has now outgrown its bounds? Continue reading to find out ways to thoroughly handle and care for juniper bushes and other critical issues.

  • Growing Juniper From Seeds
  • Juniper Tree Care Step By Step
  • How to Revive a Juniper
  • How To Transplant Juniper Ground Cover
  • Types Of Juniper Ground Cover
  • Companion Plants Of Juniper
  • Common Pests And Diseases Of Juniper

Growing Juniper From Seeds step by step

It takes a lot of time and effort to cultivate juniper from seed. Before being sown in the ground outside, the juniper seeds have to be nurtured for weeks at least.

  1. To stratify or divide up your juniper seeds, clean them using water then lined them inside a wet type of media inside a semi closed container. Wet sands as well as peat moss could be used as the media.
  2. Begin the stratification procedure around early or late in the year(January or December), and keep your juniper seeds inside the media for almost 12 weeks (3 months).
  3. Preserve your seeds at roughly 40°F and also keep your media wet by pouring little quantities of water during the procedure. Certain species of juniper would only take 8 weeks of stratification, whereas other species of juniper take 18 to 24 weeks.
  4. The next thing is for you to create an excellently drained growing juniper ground for your seeds in a sheltered area.
  5. Sandy, loamy soil is suitable for your juniper seed plantings. It is highly encouraged to introduce peat moss into your prepared soil to improve water runoff and stimulate better and healthier seed growth.
  6. Make 6 inches wide plus 1 to 2 inches depth little furrows inside the ground you prepared for your juniper.
  7. Plant approximately 40 seeds for each foot down the furrows’ bottoms, making sure they’re level with the ground.
  8. You must apply peat moss to the leftover area in the furrows until they are even with the soil. To smooth your seeds’ soil and peat moss surrounding the seeds, lightly water your sowing site using a water sprinkler.
  9. For another year or two before the little sprouts appear, keep your seed’s ground damp and weed-free.
  10. Give water to your seed’s growing medium mainly when you notice the soil surrounding the roots seems to be parched after they start to develop beyond ground surface.

Juniper Tree Care Step by step

Juniper plant care is easily carried out these ways;

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1. Soil

Typical junipers aren’t particular about the soil they grow in as long as it drains well.

Forest Hillsides, coastal escarpments, open slopes and plateaus, sand terraces with dunes plus dry, open, and rocky habitats are just a few of the places where planting juniper trees is much possible.

Junipers are very tolerant to a broad variety of soil types and are therefore not pH sensitive, however they thrive well in grounds ranging from strongly alkaline to fairly acidic.

2. Fertilizer

Juniper trees don’t need to be fertilized on a constant schedule. They are resilient bushes referred to as light feeders.

If preferred, wait till your juniper bush has now been thriving inside its fresh stable spot for about a year before nourishing it.

Following that, you may apply the similar nutrients of other plants to your juniper shrubs or trees. Carry out their feeding during the fall.

3. Water

Drought resistant trees such as regular junipers are flexible towards both arid and moist situations. Regular junipers don’t really demand any additional watering if cultivated in their natural habitat.

Your normal juniper, on the other hand, cannot tolerate being wet or soaking in stagnant water, thus proper drainage is essential.

4. Light

This sun-loving perennial regular juniper demands direct light for the duration of the daytime. You could see delayed or stunted development in your regular juniper if it doesn’t get sufficient exposure. In full shade, your regular junipers cannot and will not flourish.

5. Temperature

Cold weather conditions as severe as -49°F (or -45°C) are no match for your regular junipers during their prime. Regular junipers are indigenous to the Northern regions of the planet moderate temperate climes and can withstand a broad variety of conditions as a result.

In addition, a regular juniper might typically endure warmer months conditions of up to 80°F or 30°C.

How to Bring a Juniper Back to Life (trimming juniper bushes)

Even though juniper will not come back from a stem which really has zero green development, it can be revived with careful trimming.

Juniper Care (Trimming juniper bushes)
trimming juniper bushes

Step One

Hesitate till your juniper’s fresh shoots appear during early warmer months (spring) before pruning it.

Put on your gardening gloves and then use a home antiseptic cleanser to disinfect the edges of your trimming pliers plus hand pruners.

Using a paper towel, rub the edges of your sharp equipment thoroughly. Decontaminating the edges of your instruments minimizes the possibility of fungus and infections migrating across your juniper.

Step Two

Inspect your juniper, then cut off any unhealthy shoots from the top to the bottom of your juniper tree. Use trimming loppers to remove the unhealthy twigs. Do so by clipping each twig slightly over the point it joins the trunk.

Step Three

Remove overgrown and unappealing twigs, as well as those that are barely alive from your juniper tree. Execute a quarter-inch clip atop an outward-facing green sprout for every clip you make.

Trim as far or as few as you desire from every twig, provided you retain at minimum the final green sprout nearest to the main stem on your juniper.

Step Four

Remove one-half of the height of each new juniper hedge plant sprout.

Make a quarter inch cutting above a sprout developing on your juniper according to the orientation(direction) you wish to stimulate development of the following spring. That method promotes the complete development of your tree.

How To Transplant Juniper Ground Cover

Once your potted low-growing juniper has exhibited robust development, move these young junipers onto their stable habitat in the spring using the techniques outlined below.

  1. In a spot having sufficient exposure to sunshine and well-draining soil, make a hole that is double as broad and roughly as shallow as your juniper’s root system (ball).
  2. Clear the area surrounding the hole of any rubbish or weeds. You should also scoop the lower part and edges of the hole using your shovel’s blade to avoid soil compression, which can confine your shrub’s roots inside the transplanting hole.
  3. Detach the root ball of your shrub from the pot or planter by turning your juniper ground cover toward its edge. Using sharp scissors, cut away any unhealthy roots.
  4. Fill the dugged hole with your juniper ground cover root system(balls). To make the upper half of your shrub’s root ball even with the surface, you can add as well as reduce soil from beneath it.
  5. Refill the dirt surrounding the roots then stretch your juniper roots widely inside the hole you dug. To keep your shrub in spot, slightly push the dirt down around it.
  6. To avoid congestion, spread your juniper ground cover as per their fully grown spread of 1.5 meters to 2.4 meters (5 inches to 8 inches). The propagation of junipers is kept healthy by sufficient air circulating along their stems.
  7.  Following transplanting, properly water the ground surrounding your shrub. To stimulate root formation, sprinkle your juniper ground cover with one inch of water two times each seven days. Restrict watering to one time each week following the first month if rain doesn’t pour.
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Types Of Juniper Ground Cover

The kinds of juniper ground cover plants listed underneath are a few of the most prominent ones. These junipers can and would thrive in USDA hardiness areas 3 to 9 except specifically specified.

Types Of Juniper Ground Cover
Types Of Juniper Ground Cover

Bar Harbor

Just about all ground cover junipers do not develop as tall as this variety. Maine is home to this variety. Bar harbor can reach a height of one foot or more. This variety of Juniper possesses a blue green hue.

Green Acres

This variety of low growing juniper ground cover has a woodland green tint and may swiftly overrun an area of up to 2.5m (8 inches) in width.

Wiltonii Juniper (Blue Rug)

Blue rug develops rapidly, especially following being transferred from a conservatory, it will rapidly reach multiple meters over the first year alone.

It’s safe to say that blue rugs are the most widely grown variety of juniper. Wiltonii Juniper is silver blue in shade and only grows 6 inches from the ground.

Blue rugs look well next to other annual shrubs and trees, under trees, and along with concrete countertops.

Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales juniper grows to a height of around 6 inches. When particularly in comparison to some of the similar low growing juniper varieties, the above species’ forest-green leaves are approximately normal in length.

Blue Acres

Blue Acres can be grown in areas 4 through 9. Blue Acres is a blue-hued cultivar that grows further than just about any kind of juniper. Blue acres can typically grow to be as wide as 20 feet. As a result, they make an ideal swift ornamental grass(ground cover).

Companion Plants Of Juniper

In a variety of forms and thicknesses, juniper plants are available. A few of the junipers are big and strong enough to be used as private barriers, and some of the junipers are ideal for foundation gardening or concealing a slope.

What are some suitable juniper companion trees? The type of juniper you cultivate within your yard will determine this.

You will need to consider what to grow and produce alongside your potted juniper tree or outdoor juniper trees after you’ve chosen the exact juniper variety you want.

Plants that flourish well enough with juniper, also known as juniper tree partners, use the exact growing medium (soil), sunshine, and watering needs as juniper.

You ought to consider bamboo while researching for plants that go well with junipers. Bamboo plants, especially miniature bamboo trees and shrubs, are excellent juniper buddy trees.

Huge bamboo and giant junipers go well together, whilst also miniature bamboo and ornamental grass junipers are a perfect match.

Juniper bushes, in a broad sense, like well-drained soil. They also demand direct sunlight. Junipers are tolerant to drought and can tolerate heat as well as dry weather far easier than some other shrubs and trees. The qualities of the ideal juniper complement plants must be similar.

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For yearly excitement, aim for perennials that are also tolerant to drought and have quite a diversity of flowering periods.

Common Diseases Of Juniper

Diseases or Infections can reduce your juniper plant indoor attractiveness or even prompt your plant’s demise. It is a known fact that junipers are sensitive to a variety of infections.

Twig And Needle Blights

Juniper plants are frequently harmed by Phomopsis blight, Kabatina twig blight, and Cercospora needle blight.

Kabatina blight;

When the temperature is still chilly, Kabatina blight ailments normally show in the early spring on juniper trees.

The sprouts of juniper from the prior year end up losing their shades and become yellow, red, then eventually brown, yet these discolored leaves persist on the bushes for a prolonged period after they have already withered.

Also on juniper shoots, grayish spots of damaged bark named cankers form.

Cercospora needle blight;

Fungus Juniperi induces cercospora needle blight in junipers.  Your tree’s leaves will become brown near the base.

The discoloration of the foliage starts around the tree’s bottom and spreads upwards, eventually destroying the adult shoot endings and leaving just the latest year’s sprouts.

Your tree’s infected twigs will fall off, exposing unappealing exterior surfaces in your juniper’s trunk. During the warmer months(spring), this infection is most noticeable.

Phomopsis blight;

The fungus Phomopsis juniperovora targets fresh, premature shoot ends on a juniper tree, turning them brown as well as causing them to perish. Late warmer weather or early summer is generally the onset of  Phomopsis blight.

The indications of Phomopsis and Kabatina blights are extremely identical. However, Phomopsis destroys the current season’s juniper development, whereas the Kabatina fungus targets year-old sprouts on juniper. That is the key distinction between Phomopsis and Kabatina blights.

Phytophthora Root Rot

If your juniper growing conditions is where the ground is uncomfortably hot and also water logging, they could get Phytophthora root rot. Phytophthora root rot could also happen following a period of intense flooding at your location.

The fungus damages the roots of your juniper, causing them to turn from better and healthier white to mushy brown. Quite often your juniper root’s outermost layer sloughs away from the central core. Junipers that are sick might seem discolored or deformed.

If the infection is not managed, it will deteriorate your juniper shrub growth rate till it withers away and eventually dies.

Juniper Care FAQs

Q: How Is One Portion Of My Juniper Bush Browned While The Rest Is Not?

If your juniper potted plants are receiving excessive amounts of water and even your soil is really not discharging properly, browning might be caused by root rot.

Q: How Simple Is It To Cultivate Juniper Bush?

Juniper is a shrub that is very simple to maintain and a simple-to-grow bush.

Q: Are Bugs Attracted To Juniper?

Despite their ability to withstand a variety of weather circumstances, these tough shrubs frequently draw a variety of pests.

Q: Is It Totally Accurate That Junipers Are Harmful Towards Other Shrubs?

Junipers release an allelopathic poison into the ground, which destroys adjacent shrubs.

Conclusion

As we have discussed everything on Juniper Tree Care in this guide. Juniper Cedar Plant has even been cultivated in yards for nearly as long as humans have been growing trees and shrubs.

In addition to their pharmaceutical and food benefits, these exquisite plants give year-round beauty, structural beauty, and a unique feel provided you begin to understand them.

It’s no surprise that they’ve been established in several different locales.