Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend a Bay Island Bonsai workshop run by Daisaku Nomoto. I selected a tree I’ve been working on for the past 15 years – a hinoki. The tree improves every year, but slowly, as hinokis are notoriously slow growing. A year and a half ago, Boon and I performed some heavy bending to get the main branches closer to where we wanted them. This year the work really paid off. Here are some before and after pictures:

Front – before	Front – after
Right – before	Right – after
Left side – before	Left side – after
Back – before	Back – after

The biggest change came when Nomoto removed the first cluster of branches on the left. We discussed this ahead of the workshop and I assented to the cutting. Here’s the branch as it appeared before the workshop with guy wires holding it in place.

Before – guy-wires are doing most of the work

There were two good reasons for removing these branches. First, they blocked the view of the trunk. Second, by replacing branches that grew low on the trunk with branches that emerged higher up, we could bend these branches at a steeper angle. The idea is that older branches tend to hang lower than younger branches.

Removing the branches – stubs will be used for jins

Nomoto removed enough foliage to make a hinoki fan.

Minor cutback and wiring filled the rest of the day. Nomoto moved between workshop participants, cutting, wiring, and offering advice as appropriate. When he got back to me, he typically set a few branches and told me to continue wiring.

Nomoto setting a branch – note use of pliers

Nomoto applying wire

I occasionally looked up from my work to see what else was going on in the workshop. At one point, Nomoto was performing heavy bending with rebar. With a branch in one hand and pliers in another, he kept the rebar in place with his knee.

Heavy bending – prostrata juniper

Fortunately for me, the hinoki needed far less dramatic work, like the plucking of unnecessary foliage.

After setting a branch, Nomoto took care to remove any downward growing foliage. This creates well-defined pads and reveals the age of the tree by exposing the branches that comprise the pads.

Hinoki branch pad

As is often the case in re-stylings, the trick is getting the apex right. While the current silhouette is close to where I want it, some shoots weren’t long enough to fill in where I need them. It’s easy to see this from above.

Seen from above – after re-styling

I’m really happy with the way the tree turned out. For one, it finally approximates the design I had in mind for it 15 years ago. Even better, I now have a tree I can show in Bay Island Bonsai’s upcoming exhibit next January.

Happy with the results – excess foliage cover the turntable

Now 15 years in, I feel like I’m half-way there, and it’s a great feeling.

Daisaku Nomoto has been busy during his brief summer visit to the Bay Area. Here are some of the trees he’s been working on, beginning with an old prostrata juniper.

Prostrata juniper – before

Prostrata juniper – after

Although I’m familiar with his work, Nomoto continues to surprise me. One of the greatest talents bonsai artists develop is their ability to see what a tree can become. Keeping trees healthy is rarely straightforward, and bonsai techniques can range from non-intuitive to incomprehensible. It’s the artistic vision, however, that I most appreciate.

Shimpaku – before

Shimpaku – after

The work always begins with an evaluation, and often an adjustment, of the front of the tree. From there cutback, wiring and styling follow. One would think that getting the tree in the pot at a satisfactory angle is easy until one notices how much Nomoto’s adjustments improve the line of the trunk and the balance of the tree.

Sometimes the trees get entirely new fronts. The photo of the juniper below is shown from the tree’s original front. To make better use of the shari along the trunk, Nomoto suggested using the other side as the front.

The tree’s orignal front after styling – now the back of the tree

Nomoto describing the benefits of the new front

Turning the tree around and tilting it forward made a striking improvement – I’m hoping to see it displayed at an upcoming exhibit. Here it is from the new front.

Shimpaku – new front after styling

The Sierra juniper below is quickly developing into a great tree. As Nomoto noted at last week’s Bay Island Bonsai meeting, planting the pot an inch or two deeper in the pot will reduce the reverse taper and make the tree appear more powerful.

Sierra juniper – before

Sierra juniper – after

Before letting me take any of these photos, Nomoto was adamant about getting the angle right. After snapping a shot of the shimpaku below, I showed the photo to Nomoto. Wasn’t good enough. Several adjustments and several photos later and he was finally happy.

Finding the front

Shimpaku juniper – after styling

Nomoto suggested shortening the jin on the right side of the tree. We’ll see if the tree’s owner agrees. You can see a shot of the tree before the styling at the end of last week’s post, Daisaku Nomoto bonsai critique. This post, as it happens, was featured last week by WordPress.com – the service I use to host Bonsai Tonight. It sent approximately 4,000 new visitors to the site, giving Nomoto a bit more exposure than he’s used to. He replied to this news with a grin: “Maybe 4,000 new customer?”

Decandling shohin black pine is similar to decandling larger black pine bonsai with one key difference – it’s done later in the season. Just by a few weeks. By giving summer shoots less time to develop, we prevent them from growing too large. As is often the case in bonsai, proportion is far more important that absolute size. “Small needles” are great in the abstract, but on a tree they can look funny if the proportion is off. Larger trees look good with larger needles, shohin look good with small needles. All of which can be produced by careful decandling.

Here’s a 16 year-old shohin black pine, ready for its second or third decandling. It’s rather shaggy.

Shohin Japanese black pine – before decandling

The first step is sizing up the shoots. As expected, I found large shoots near the top of the tree, and smaller shoots on the lower branches.

Vigorous shoot

Less-vigorous shoot

For the most part, new shoots were either somewhat large (the two on the left) or fairly small.

Large, medium-large, and small shoots

Normally I’d like to remove the smallest shoots first, wait 10 days, then remove the larger shoots. But because I decandled this tree a little later than normal this year, I opted to remove all of the spring growth on the same day.

I found, as I worked, several very large shoots.

Two very large shoots with a small shoot for comparison

These were anomales. Each started not near the tree’s apex, but from the center of the tree – the spot where I’d normally expect to find the very weakest shoots. In each case, they sprouted just below large cuts where entire branches were removed the year before. That energy had to go somewhere, and it made it into these shoots.

Because I removed all of the shoots on the same day, I needed a way to slow down the more vigorous areas of the tree to bring the strong and weak areas into balance. To do this, I left stubs – longer in strong areas, shorter in weaker areas – and pulled needles.

Just before getting started, I wondered how I would be able to distinguish the strong areas from the weak after decandling. If I couldn’t tell one from the other, I’d have little guidance when it came time to pull needles. There are two conventional solutions. One is to remove unnecessary needles while decandling, scissors in the left hand, tweezers in the right. This is a great technique – one I would not, however, recommend to anyone without significant pine skills.

For this tree, I opted for the easier alternative – first I cut the spring growth, then I pulled needles. The stubs let me know which shoots were vigorous and which were weak. When I came across a shoot like the one pictured below – large stub, many needles – I’d remove a fair number of needles. When I came across shoots with shorter stubs, I left more needles to help these shoots catch up with their more vigorous neighbors.

Decandled shoot with stub – before removing needles

Decandled shoots

Post decandling is a good time to catch up on wiring. In a few weeks, when the new buds appear, wiring becomes very tricky. Once pines get to this point, it’s best to wait until the summer shoots harden off before wiring. Here’s a picture of the tree after removing the spring growth but before thinning the needles.

After removing spring growth.

And here’s a shot of the tree post decandling and needle thinning.

Japanese black pine: decandled, needles thinned

This young tree has a way to go before it’s first exhibit. Once the summer growth comes in, I’ll give the tree a once over – more needle thinning, cutback, and wiring. That will help – I’m optimistic I can show it within the next five years. To better gauge how the tree is coming along, see the following post (my third ever) from a year ago January: Shohin black pine from scratch.

Decandling cork bark Japanese black pines is very similar to decandling the non-cork bark trees. The main difference is that cork bark pines are usually less vigorous. A general rule of thumb is to decandle them every other year, ideally showing them in the years after which they’ve been decandled.

I decandled this tree for the first time in 2009. It came out very strong so I’ve decandled it a second time this year. We’ll see how it comes out in fall.

Before decandling – front

After decandling

Before – back

After decandling – back

I plucked a handful of needles from the strongest areas, mostly near the top of the tree, to help balance the new growth. The lower branches are weaker – I left all of the old needles in these areas.

Decandled shoots

Decandled shoots

Considering the many factors that contribute to successful decandling, I’m leaving the fertilizer in place throughout the decandling season. Normally I’d remove it all when I decandle. But because cork bark is somewhat weaker than pine, I’m giving the tree the slight advantage of getting fertilizer while it forms summer shoots. I’ll add new fertilizer according the to typical decandling calendar – little by little beginning about 4 weeks after decandling – and end up with a lot of fertilizer on the tree by fall. I’ll leave the fertilizer in place until the very end of the year – the mild winters here make the growing season long.

There are many techniques for developing Japanese black pine bonsai: pinching, plucking, and pruning among them. All are necessary, but none do the work of decandling. I’m surprised each year at how well decandling balances vigor, improves ramification, and reduces needle size.

I began caring for a cork bark Japanese black pine in 2004. After several years of restoring the tree’s vigor, it was time to decandle. Just a year and a half later, the tree more than doubled its ramification.

Before decandling – January 2009

18 months later – June 2010

The tree still needs plenty of work, but that’s part of the fun. As long as there is progress, the work is bearable.

You can see the tree with moss at Bay Island Bonsai’s gallery of the 2010 Exhibit.

The basics of decandling Japanese black pine are straightforward. The application of the basics is more of a long-term pursuit.

At its most rudimentary, decandling is the practice of replacing vigorous spring growth with moderately-vigorous summer growth – a technique for removing one shoot and replacing it with two. It’s a powerful tool for balancing black pine growth.

The technique has been practiced for roughly half a century. Saichi Suzuki, father of the famous Daiju En bonsai garden in Okazaki, Japan, stumbled upon the technique after awaking to find the new shoots of a Japanese black pine munched away by some critter. Over the course of the summer, new shoots replaced the spring growth. Curiously, the summer growth was more refined than the spring growth – the shoots were shorter, and more importantly, the new needles were shorter. Black pine had long been a challenge for its long needles. What Suzuki realized, upon witnessing a black pine bonsai produce shorter needles, was that there might be a way to produce the effect with predictable results.

Many years of experimentation led to today’s decandling techniques. Daiju En has since become known as the world’s premier bonsai garden for black pine.

Below is a photo of a black pine in January. Most of the needles are short from the previous year’s decandling, though you’ll notice a few longer ones if you look closely. These are from weaker shoots that weren’t decandled last year to help them recover their vigor.

Japanese black pine – January, 2009

Several months later, pines lose their tidy appearance. Spring shoots appear all over, usually more vigorous toward the apex. Several years of this unbalanced growth can quickly produce an ungainly effect. Here’s the same tree pictured in June.

Black pine with spring shoots – June, 2009

This is the time to decandle – when the spring shoots have matured. The precise date depends on many factors – I’ll cover these in another post. I’ll also outline some of the many approaches to decandling.

Note that decandling only works well for healthy, vigorous trees. Weak trees, or trees that didn’t receive a lot of fertilizer in spring aren’t good candidates for decandling. Because the technique significantly decreases a tree’s vigor, I always think carefully before clipping away.

Step one is dividing the tree’s growth into several zones. A popular approach entails identifying four. Here they are from least vigorous to most vigorous.

Spring growth

The weakest shoots are left alone – the more vigorous shoots are removed.

It’s important to be precise in the cutting of the new shoots. Little details like the angle and location of the cut can have a big effect on the result. Here is a prime candidate for decandling.

Japanese black pine – two years’ growth

The cut must be made perpendicular to the shoot – sharp scissors are a must.

Keeping scissors perpendicular to the shoot.

Spring growth removed

Optional technique – thinning last year’s needles after decandling

That’s it – the basics anyway. Decandled pines look bare at first, but fill in well between June and October.

Decandled pine

How well a pine fills in depends on a number of factors, some in our control – water, fertilizer – and others far from our control – like the weather. Fertilizer is typically removed at decandling time and slowly re-introduced over the course of the summer. Watering, as always, must be monitored closely. Although decandled pines drink less than trees with rapidly growing shoots, decandled trees do appreciate humidity and are good candidates for frequent mistings in dry areas.

One of the best ways to get started with decandling is to find someone local who has demonstrated success with the practice. Look carefully – they can be hard to find!

It’s common to divide a tree’s shoots into three zones based on strength during decandling season. A long-term project of mine had me dividing a tree into three zones for very different reasons.

Japanese black pine – after decandling

The lowest third of this sixteen year-old Japanese black pine is beginning to develop branches that will be used in the final design of the tree – these I decandled. The top third of the tree – two vigorous sacrifice branches – are not decandled. These branches are facilitating future grafts by providing scions and keeping sap flowing past the spots where I need to graft.

The branches growing from the middle of the trunk will comprise the apical branches. I’m keeping the spring shoots here to facilitate approach grafts next season. I’ve never tried approach grafts with black pine and am curious to give it a try.

After decandling

After decandling – first branch on the left

Decandled branch

Spring shoots retained for approach grafting next year

What I’m most looking forward to is removing the top half of the trunk. I’ll do this a year or two after I can get grafts to take near the top of the tree. Then, another five years of decandling or so and the tree may be ready for exhibit at a young 20-25 years old.

Sixteen years ago I planted a group of red pine seeds. I made seedling cuttings, watered, and fertilized the trees, but never created a plan for their future. As a result, fate determined their present form. The trees were healthy but ungainly – perfect candidates for a forest planting.

Red pines are a very vigorous variety. Cutting them back hard seems only to trigger more vigorous growth. Timing, in these cases, becomes an important ally for managing new growth. By May, new shoots had covered the trees, but it was still too early for decandling.

Strong growth in May, but too early to decandle

By the mid-June, the trees had filled in considerably. This was a good time to decandle.

Red pine forest before decandling – front

Before decandling – back

It was hard, at first, to get past the new growth and find where to cut. Once I had cleared an opening, the work went quickly.

Getting started

I left stubs at the base of the most vigorous shoots. For less vigorous shoots, I removed shoot and stub. I left the weakest areas of the tree alone so they can regain vigor and help balance the foliage.

Vigorous new shoot

Vigorous shoot removed – note stub

Leaving stubs is a technique for slowing the most vigorous shoots. I can’t explain why it works, but experience has proved it to be a good technique for balancing growth.

I also removed a lot of old needles as I worked. I removed more from strong areas, fewer in weak areas. As with the decandling, the goal is to balance growth.

Decandled branch

One tree down, five to go

After much clipping and plucking, the trees looked pretty bare. I’ve removed a similar amount of foliage from these trees before and expect them to fill in again by late fall. Careful watering and fertilizing will help – a warm summer will help more.

After decandling – front

After decandling – back

Strong area – candles and old needles removed

Weak area – spring growth retained

Mixed area – strong growth removed and weak growth retained

Although I’m confident that the tree will come out well this fall, I know not to expect too much. Decandling is a funny practice. Sometimes the trees come out a bit too strong, other years, too weak. I’ll provide updates along the way and we’ll see what this year brings.

There’s a lot to say about decandling Japanese black pine. I’ll start with some basics. Here’s a pine going into decandling season.

Japanese black pine – front

Japanese black pine – back

And here’s the same tree after decandling:

Japanese black pine – front

It won’t take much effort to see that I didn’t decandle this year. Why? Last year I showed the tree in Bay Island Bonsai’s 10th Annual Exhibit. Here’s a shot from the exhibit:

Tree as shown at BIB’s 10th annual exhibit in 2009

I repotted the tree before and after the exhibit. Several months later I decandled it. This winter I noticed that the drainage had slowed down, so I repotted again, clearing out a lot of old soil and cutting the tree back heavily, knowing that I wouldn’t be showing it for some time.

As a result of doing this work, the tree came out weak this year. New growth appeared at every shoot, but the growth was not vigorous. The tree needs a break, so I decided not to decandle it this year. Decandling weak trees can slow them down or even kill them – chances I have no desire to take. By letting the spring growth mature, I expect the pine will quickly regain its vigor. And when the tree is again vigorous, I can continue refining it.

Trident maple bonsai grow quickly. It’s a characteristic that can yield great ramification in a relatively short amount of time. Daisaku Nomoto, a very talented Japanese bonsai professional and student of Kihachi En, suggested a mere three years can be enough to prepare trident maple bonsai for Kokufu. I asked how this could be possible. Simple, he replied in a matter-of-fact tone. Cutback and detail wiring three times a year for three years provides plenty of ramification. Easier said than done, I thought. Especially in the warm weather of Miyazaki Prefecture where Nomoto lives.

In Northern California, I can partially defoliate trident maples 3 times a year. And while I can’t expect the new shoots that warmer, more humid, weather can produce, I can expect fairly vigorous growth. This year, a cool spring kept growth in check. Here is what the tree looked like in early May.

Ready for the first cutback of the season

The general outline of the tree is ok. My goal for the year is to thicken the primary branches while further developing the fine ramification. To do so, I removed all large leaves and cut back shoots in areas that don’t need thickening. I wired the branches I want to thicken and will let them grow unchecked for a while. The result isn’t quite show-worthy.

Trident maple after cutback

Here’s a shot of the tree as it was just starting to leaf out this spring. It’s clear that the lowest branches on the tree aren’t much larger than the branches higher up on the tree. They also lack the ramification exhibited by the branches that form the apex.

Trident maple – starting to leaf out

Several years ago, during an effort to develop the back of the tree as the front – an effort I’ve since given up on – I let some shoots grow fairly long.

Letting shoots grow to thicken branches

These long shoots quickly produced good primary branches for the “bonus” branches peeking out from behind the stone. Here’s a shot of the back of the tree showing the result of this effort.

The back side of the tree.

Letting shoots grow is fun, but it requires care when wire is in place. The goal is to leave the wire in place long enough to set the branches without letting them cut in excessively. Trident maples recover well from minor scarring, but minor scars can become major in a matter of weeks. I’ll paying close attention to this tree over the coming months – especially if the weather warms up.