Take your fingernail and scratch the bark on the branches with dead foliage. Start just behind the dead area and work your way toward the base of the trunk. when you see green where you scratch you have a living point on the tree. Obviosly if don't see green anywhere the the plant is dead and any further treatment is hopeless. More than likely you have this plant in a hopeless situation to begin with. Junipers are not an indoor friendly species and do not require daily watering(most of the time not even weekly watering). Those are the the main reasons junipers die. Read up on your plants before you buy them and make sure you can provide a suitable living habitat for them. Check the site provided you are more than likely dealing with what we call mallsai(mass produce bonsai). Good luck with your new tree i hope you can save it.

http://wiki.bonsaitalk.com/index.php/Beware_the_mallsai

gbond3

The "scratch the bark" test is unreadable on things like junipers and yews. That green cambium layer is almost non existent to the point of indistinguishable. The only reliable way to tell the health of the branch is look closely at the texture and coloration of the bark. A dead branch will wrinkle up and loose that nice reddish brown color.

If a branch has no green lush foliage, it's dead. We are talking about an evergreen here.

There are too many people on this forum quoting stuff they have read exspecting it to cover all plants. I wish those giving advice would please only give advice about things you have experience with.

randy

excuse me randy i may not be the most expierienced person here, yet i do own two junipers. i have done a scratch test before and could see the cambium. as far as the bark goes the two trees i have both have dry wrinkled pealing bark, which is common on many varieties of juniper and actually one of the reasons they are used so often in bonsai. The wrinkled bark gives an apearence of age. i have never claimed to be an expert and only respond to questions i have expierience with. i believe that is the reason for a forum like this. if you cannot be patient with those not as expierienced as you maybe you should not respond at all.

Tim

Dear Tim

I think you're right. This forum has become a joke really and I'm not sure why I'm still here.

You might post a photo of that green cambium layer on your juniper so gbond3 will know what it looks like.

Randy,
Since you feel so obligated to be a smart A S S I thought I would coorperate and give you the same treatment in return. Then I realized its not about you its about teaching those who are here to learn. So I decided to follow your advice and help gbond3 by posting a picture of the green cambium layer. Maybe even those who think they have expierience still have a thing or two to learn.

Thanks for for mocking those trying to help.
Tim

{{gwi:4805}}

And it's also possible for bright green not to show up in a given tree, at some time of year, etc. Conifers are funny that way, and may be fine, so it can be risky to just depend on seeing green to decide if one if alive or not - it's just not as reliable in them as it is in deciduous trees.

For those interested in learning, my answer was based on doing a scratch test on about 20 different plants and 3 different species, non of them showing a green cambium layer. Do the test yourself on all the ones you may have in the landscape around you. This is my last post here on this forum. let Tim's infinite wisdom carry on the great tradition.

Smart A S S