Carpet Juniper, #2517
Purchased ground juniper from Gerry Fields’ estate. Great movement with Shari potential. great nebari, very few fine roots. Will recover in a closed bin. While not ideal foliage, it is soft. $50.
Oct 2025
All deadwood bark removed, leaving the live vein
Next to wire foliage and style
Sep 2025 Potting
Blue Rug Juniper [Bonsai Mirai]
https://bonsaimirai.com/species/blue-rug-juniper-bonsai
Blue rug juniper was not used in bonsai until it was introduced by Nick Lenz in his book Bonsai From the Wild: Collecting, Styling & Caring for Bonsai. He had a great deal of success with this species and inspired many others to begin working with it as well.
The tree should be allowed to grow freely in the spring. This fuels the sugar starch loading and the continued evolution of the tree.
Moderate fertilization is all that’s needed. Heavy fertilization is a waste and probably causes the tree to be more susceptible to pests and disease rather than helping it grow at an accelerated rate.
Structural pruning should happen in the spring and fall. We can do heavy branch reduction and initial styling in the spring just before they produce growth or in the early fall just past the heat of summer.
Pruning for refinement should occur in mid-summer after the spring’s vigorous flush hardens off, typically from late June through August. During this time, you can prune blue rug juniper to be compact and transition its energy to tertiary ramification.
Blue rug juniper bonsai should be wired in winter when the tree is dormant. Once the new shapes of the branches have set, be sure to carefully remove the wire with cutters so as not to damage the tree.
Blue rug juniper is susceptible to scale, particularly the minute cypress scale insect, Carulaspis minima. It may also suffer from spider mites like any other juniper.
You should also be concerned about your blue rug juniper contracting phomopsis and juniper tip blight.