Yard Work

Juniper - Before

When we moved into this house, the yard was filthy-thick with juniper bushes. San Jose variety, I think, though I could be wrong. The front yard was completely covered, and it was under the porch overhang. There were some really big bushes in the back, some of them rising to eight feet in height. Our Chow-Chow dog Roxanne, believing she was a cat, tried to follow Stripe up a tree once, and managed to get six feet up in the juniper bush, which was pretty impressive. 

Eventually, we cut down and uprooted almost all of the stuff. Seemed like a good idea at the time. The bushes out back started to die, the ones out front kept trying to dig into the crawl space, and those under the porch took up space we wanted for lawn furniture.

We left a patch by the sidewalk, in the southwest corner of the yard, under the plum tree, and every year or two, I trim it back so it doesn't block the walk. 

Not much to look at, a tangled mess, but there you go.

Recently, we passed a neighbor's house on a walk and saw they had done some sculpting on their junipers, so it inspired me to do something with ours. I figured a bonsai haircut would be nice, clipping and trimming out the majority of it and trying to give it that twisty, windblown look. I've been meaning to start another bonsai, and, why not?

It'll take a while. An hour or so with the big clippers and bonsai scissors and I managed to get one corner sorta roughed out.

I'll post the after pictures when I'm done. I

f I get done ... 

Weekend Update: 

I started serious cutting, and came across a branch that had turned a full 360º. I trimmed off the bit that jutted toward the sidewalk, but I'll leave that loop.