Buds on Japanese beech are easy to spot – they’re the long, pointy things at the ends of branches.
Japanese beech buds
They are among the last buds to open in spring. Once most of the quince, maples, and plums are in full gear, the beech buds begin to elongate.
Elongating bud
Once these buds start moving, it will soon be time to pinch.
The ideal time for pinching is when you can just distinguish the new leaves on a young shoot. This can be tricky due to the bronze-colored bud scales located between leaves.
Here’s a shoot that’s not quite ready for pinching.
Partially open shoot
Although the shoot looks like a relatively solid mass, removing the bud scales makes it easy to see the new leaves.
Partially open shoot after removing bud scales
Bud scales
Removing bud scales, however, is not necessary or desirable. Instead, we can wait until the shoots open up a bit more before pinching.
Elongating buds – ready for pinching
If the new leaves are hard to spot, gently bending the shoot – or waiting a day or two – can help.
Revealing the new leaves
Generally, all but the first two leaves are removed. Here’s a close-up.
Bud ready to be pinched
After pinching
Shoots that aren’t pinched on time can be reduced by cutting, but internodes may lengthen.
Too late for pinching – time to cut
As always with pinching, it’s important to know when to pinch and when to let a tree grow freely. I’ve been working on a beech forest for just over a year and I want to make sure the trees are well established before pinching so I let the tree grow.
Japanese beech forest – mid-April
I’d planned on leaving the tree alone until May, but there were so many leaves that I decided to cut back the shoots that were open to one, two, or three leaves to let more light into the tree’s interior.
After reducing the spring shoots
Of course, not all of the trees are open yet so I’ll have a few more shoots to reduce between now and June when I’ll do some thinning and leaf pruning.
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derek says
Question – Is this process the same for American and European beech?
Jonas Dupuich says
Hi Derek – I have less experience with American and European beech, but my understanding is that the approach is the same.
Barry McDonnell says
Thanks for timely sharing on this. I just started moving my beeches out of winter storage (I live in S.E PA) and the buds are swelling. Please follow up in June on the thinning process.
Josu says
Hello Jonas
In my opinion the European beech does not work the same as the Japanese beech.
Last year my friend José Luís Crespo and I prepared two articles explaining the technique he uses.
It is not a very aesthetic technique. The trees do not look so pretty with leaves but their silhouette in winter improves year after year.
The articles were published in the blog of our friend Loli.
These are the links.
http://www.lolibonsai.com/2017/04/la-colaboracion-de-josu-y-jose-luis.html
http://www.lolibonsai.com/2017/05/la-colaboracion-dejosu-y-jose-luis.html
The articles are in Spanish. If someone needs some clarification he can ask Loli or myself. I will try to resolve it with my magnified English of the google translator.
regards
Josu
Jonas Dupuich says
Thank you Josu, this is a fantastic resource and the trees look great! Will attempt a read with my rudimentary Spanish and give it a try.