Refining old bonsai isn’t always a quick process – especially when the bonsai is a corkbark black pine. With brittle branches, the variety does not lend itself to dramatic restyling. I’ve been fortunate that the pine below has been healthy enough to decandle three years in a row. Many corkbark pines need a year to […]
Search Results for: decandling
Big cuts
On my first and only visit to Kihachiro Kamiya’s nursery in 1999, I found Daisaku Nomoto working on a young black pine. It was close to 30 years old, and the tree was beautiful to me; it had a large base and fast taper and was more full than the pines I was used to […]
How to decandle shohin black pine
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 […]
Cork bark Japanese black pine – finding the front
Finding the front of a bonsai is a great exercise – one of my favorites. Both existing bonsai and newly collected trees make good candidates. The cork bark black pine I’ve been working on for the past 6 years has had the same front for very likely most, if not all, of its life. Here […]
Why decandle?
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 […]