Managing Rocky Mountain Juniper Foliage

Rocky Mountain Junipers are grown for their magnificent trunks. Junipers in general are known for their dynamism, but Rockies are exceptionally sinuous and exciting.

The foliage of Rocky has a great genetic variability. The color ranges from green to blue to gray to yellowish. And the structure also varies, from the rare trees with fine shoots to the more common coarse, leggy shoots that can’t support their own weight, so they dangle.

Often you get one of those great trunks with that unlovely foliage. After growing for two months it flops over, making it look like a mop.

How can we work with this foliage type?

Here’s our example tree. It looks moppish and ready for a reset. There’s a nice trunk in there, but we can’t see it.

At first glance, Rocky looks totally unlike Shinpaku. With Shinpaku foliage, the shoots support their own weight, and there’s little flopping (Dickens fans may recall Mrs. Cruncher from A Tale of Two Cities).

First, cut off longer, dangling shoots with scissors. These are the weaker parts that are not worth wiring.

Then cut back the long, strong extensions on top of the pad.

Easier to see the shoots that need cutting from this view. There are a half dozen that rise above the crown that could use a trim.

How it looks after the shoot trim.

Lastly, any dangling green shoots are pulled.

After the foliage rework and a light reset of the fine wires, it may look something like this. Notice that many growing ends were left alone. No pinching. Only the longer shoots were cut with scissors.

And the re-quaffed tree. Most Rocky needs a trim and a reset of the fine wired twigs twice a year. Let it grow (and get moppish), then reset.

I’ve found that too much fertilizer just makes Rocky go needley. Some are more prone to this juvenile growth than others, but for maintaining this floppy species a small to moderate amount of fertilizer, throughout the growing season, is about right.

In a large pot, a Rocky may go some years before needing a repot. This one hasn’t been repotted since it went in its pot fourteen years ago. The soil is still permeable. Drains well. It grows well each year and nothing is amiss. It seems that not only is the foliage leggy, but the roots are as well. As above, so below.

For the 2012 styling of this Rocky, here’s the original post.