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Cutting back and wiring a young cascade pine

December 24, 2019 by Jonas Dupuich

Some of my cascade black pines are almost six years old.

Black pine

Black pine pre-bonsai

Now that the basic curves are set, the main focus is to improve the branch structure. I do this by cutting back to two branches per intersection.

After cutback

After cutback

It’s much easier to wire trees that have recently been thinned, so I bent a few branches into position with copper wire.

After wiring

After wiring – 11″ tall, 18″ wide

The long shoots at the ends of the lowest branches are sacrifice branches. By letting them grow, I can encourage the tree to develop a thicker trunk. The only question, at this stage, is how much I want the trunk to thicken.

I expect to let the sacrifice branches develop for one or two years and then evaluate my goals for the tree. In the meantime, I’ll continue decandling each spring in an effort to shorten internodes and increase branch density.

For a look at the tree back in January, check out “Developing cascade black pine.”

✕

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Filed Under: Bonsai Development Tagged With: Black Pine, Cascade

Previous Post: « Setting design goals for refining mature bonsai
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Edward Stanton says

    December 24, 2019 at 8:14 am

    Jonas, thank you for this blog and all the fantastic blogs of 2019. How could we live without Bonsai Tonight?

    • Jonas Dupuich says

      December 24, 2019 at 2:33 pm

      Thanks Ed – it’s support from readers like you that keep me going!

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