Festive Juniper

Looking after your Juniper Tree This young evergreen tree will eventually grow into a sizeable bush and can produce fragrant fruits for flavouring gin and desserts. Young trees are quite happy indoors for a few weeks but longer term they will prefer a spot in the garden.

If inside make sure your plant gets plenty of daylight, by putting it near a window. A cool room or a light porch is best, and it will be happiest away from any radiators. If you have a garden or a patio then your tree will prefer to be outside longer term and are incredibly hardy taking temperatures right down to -20C.

When in a small pot, young trees will need some watering, especially if your room is centrally heated.

Juniperus communis will eventually grow into a full size tree several metres tall but it will grow slowly and can be kept to a manageable size by restricting the size of the pot. To encourage lots of growth either repot your tree in Spring or plant it out in the garden. To keep it smaller repot your tree into just a slightly bigger pot in Spring 2020.

Please note juniper bushes can either develop as male or female plants and only a female plant will produce the fragrant berries. These plants are grown from seed so it's not possible to know whether your plant is male or female but as it gets older look out for yellow cone shaped male flowers or the round green flowers on the female. The green female flowers are fertilized by wind blown male pollen so there is a very good chance that if you have a female plant you will get ripe berries in due course.

Problem Solving: Juniper trees are tough trees that require little maintenance. They tolerate a wide range of temperatures and soil types and can be grown in sun or part shade.

New shoots are a different colour – in the spring and summer your plant should begin to put on new leaves, don’t worry if they are a lighter colour than the existing leaves, they will colour up over a few weeks.

New shoots are drooping – new shoots are more tender than established branches and may droop if exposed to hot or cold temperatures, ensure they are fully watered and try to keep in an even frost free temperature until the young leaves have matured and changed colour. Dropping needles are almost always due to underwatering, make sure the soil is really wet.