How do you prune junipers?

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jugglerguy Alpena, MI(Zone 4b) Dec 30, 2006

I have a lot of sea green junipers around my house. They're not my favorite shrubs, but they're evergreen and deer don't eat them. When I bought them, the tags said they grow 4-6 feet tall and wide. I have some that are about five years old that are now larger than that and show no sign of stopping their growth. One has a branch that is about eight feet tall. I started hacking away at some of them, but they're sort of hard to prune. I want them to look natural, but smaller. I don't want them to look like little balls. The problem I'm having is that they seem to branch very low and then they don't branch any more. I thought I'd remove branches where they fork, but since they do that so low, that just makes the shrubs thinner but leaves other branches just as long. If I cut the end of a branch off, it seems like it will look bad since they naturally end in a point, but now it will be a flat end of a branch.

Is there a proper way to trim these things?

If I don't prune them, how big will sea green junipers get?

Is there a better deer proof evergreen for zone 4 that gets about five feet tall and wide?

Thanks,
Rob

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kandlmidd Presque Isle, WI(Zone 3b) Dec 30, 2006

Rob, in the same boat here w/ junipers. As I remember I "googled" and got a lot of good info, although all discouraging. My big problem, besides the deer, which don't seem to like the sea green, is with snow load. After a winter's season, spring reveals all vase type junipers flat as a pancake and usually broken or split where they attempted to adjust to the snow load. Also they all need full sun which is in scarce supply when the maples leaf out. My answer has been to go to Microbiota decussata (siberian cypress). Ken

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jugglerguy Alpena, MI(Zone 4b) Dec 30, 2006

I get a few broken branches each year from snow too. There haven't been so many broken that it really mattered so that hasn't been a big concern. The one that's closest to the driveway flattens out into the driveway so I have to run the snowblower around it, but that's not a big deal either. My junipers only get about a half day of sun and they do fine.

I looked at the Microbiota decussata, but that won't work for me. I have a foundation that is about three feet high that I need to hide. Microbiota decussata only gets a foot tall, but gets over 10 feet wide. That's too short and wide, but thanks for the suggestion.

Rob

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