Thickening trunk and thickening roots for juniper

[majerez85]

I am planning on thickening thhe trunk on my juniper, I was going to do this by dwarfing and pinching the tree so that it grows the lower branches, trunk and root instead of focusing on the top foliage, as for the roots I was going to repot the tree in a soil mixture of coarse soil grains at the bottom , medium sized soil granules next, and fine soil at the top, all in a shallow pot so that some rots can get some exposure to the sun and thicken and harden. My juniper is about 4-5 years old and I just got it, I want to repot it so soon because the roots are already growing out of the drainage hole, please tell me if this if the proper way to do this, thanks alot.

[opabinia51]

The way to thicken a trunk is to have branches growing on it. So, don't prune any of the lower branches off your trunk.

You can give your roots a pruning before repotting it as well.

[majerez85]

But a book I have says to dwarf the tree by pruning it to encourage trunk and root growth.

[Joseph]

What book? When was it written and by who?

I hate to say it but the book is wrong.

[majerez85]

its called the living art of bonsai it was written by professor amy liang. I figured that the book was right because they said that by pruning new growth would focues more of the minerals to the other branches and would grow thoes and thicken them up.

[Joseph]

I think it means only pruning leaves. If you want the trunk to thicken you can't prune any of the branches.

Pinching out leaves and defoliating on some trees will reduce the leaf size. But the tree needs the branches to encourage it to thicken.

[opabinia51]

Seconded.

[majerez85]

ok I wil do that, then letting branches grow on the trunk itself will also help promote thickening of it? And I had already pruned the branches from the trunk before I even found this forum so is there a way I can get new growth there?

[The Helpful Gardener]

They are called sacrificial branches; grown simply to increase caliper without any styling intent at all. Dr. Liang's excellent section on Poor Branching lacks that one small detail about WHEN to prune off bad branching. While it does not beautify the tree to leave some of these branches on it can be invaluable to fattening the trunk below that point...

HG