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When to keep old needles on weak branches

October 9, 2018 by Jonas Dupuich

Here’s another black pine that’s slowly regaining vigor. There’s plenty of new foliage on the strongest shoots, but many of the weaker branches have just a few new needles each.

Old black pine

Where there are many new needles, I can remove all of the old the needles.

Relatively strong branch

After removing the 3rd year needles

After removing last year’s needles

On the weakest branches, I removed a few of the downward facing needles and left the rest alone.

Weak branch

After removing the downward facing needles

Needle-pulling complete

I expect a number of the yellow needles to turn brown and fall off over the next month or two so the tree will likely look thinner by the end of the year. It will likely be a full year before I can start working on the branches, and possibly two before the lowest branch is strong enough for wiring or decandling.

Related Post

Rehabilitating a black pine – removing old needles

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Filed Under: Bonsai Development Tagged With: Black Pine

Previous Post: « Rehabilitating a black pine – removing old needles
Next Post: Two year progression on a cascade black pine »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Edward Stanton says

    October 9, 2018 at 6:50 am

    The clear differentiation between 3rd-, 2nd- and 1st-year needles is very helpful in this post. Thank you.

    • Jonas Dupuich says

      October 9, 2018 at 7:31 am

      Thanks, Ed, am happy to hear it!

  2. Guy says

    October 9, 2018 at 9:16 am

    Hi Jonas,

    What time of year can this be done?
    I am in the southern hemisphere and going in to summer now.

    • Jonas Dupuich says

      October 9, 2018 at 10:38 am

      Good question Guy – the best time to remove old needles is fall, once the new growth has hardened off. In the northern hemisphere October or November is a good time, so it could be that April or May would be the right time in the southern hemisphere.

  3. Guy says

    October 12, 2018 at 2:24 pm

    Thank you Jonas, will wait till then

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