Here’s a six year-old pine with a large sacrifice branch. Six year-old black pine It’s great that the sacrifice branch has grown this much, but it’s getting big relative to the future trunkline. Sacrifice branch Future trunk If I had reduced the sacrifice branch a year or two ago, it would have grown less but […]
Bonsai Development
Bonsai Development posts form the heart of Bonsai Tonight. Learn about varieties like Black Pine, Shimpaku and Japanese Maple, techniques like Decandling and Grafting and Air Layering, and bonsai features like Deadwood.
Two year progression on a cascade black pine
Two years ago this month, Daisaku Nomoto did a demonstration at the Pacific Northwest Bonsai Clubs Association convention in Olympia, Washington. His helpers were Boon Manakitivipart, Matt Reel and Tyler Sherrod – quite a team! Here’s the finished product. October, 2016 After the demo, I brought the tree home, repotted it in winter, and decandled […]
When to keep old needles on weak branches
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 […]
Rehabilitating a black pine – removing old needles
I’d like to write a few articles this season about fall work for pines, in particular needle-pulling and thinning. I’ll start with a simple example. One of my recently acquired pines was very weak last year. When I repotted it for the first time, I found enough healthy roots to make me think the tree […]
Stimulating back buds on Japanese black pine
Earlier this week, we looked at the three basic types of buds found on black pine bonsai. Here’s what we can do to stimulate each. As terminal buds develop without prompting, we don’t need to do anything to encourage them. They’re the buds at the end of every living branch. To demonstrate techniques for stimulating […]