I’ve received a lot of questions about decandling since I started writing about it. The basic idea is simple – we decandle pines to replace vigorous spring growth with less vigorous summer growth. There are, however, a number of variables to consider, from timing to needle plucking to after care. The best way to navigate […]
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.
Pine decandling
The progress continues on a Japanese black pine I’ve been working on since digging the tree from Lone Pine Gardens some years back. This summer’s work consisted of decandling, thinning a few needles, and reducing the two temporary branches at the top of the tree. Japanese black pine, approximately 18yrs old – before decandling After […]
Korean hornbeam – summer work
Korean hornbeam can grow dense with little effort. To encourage interior shoots, I need to thin the foliage. I do this by cutting new shoots back to 2-4 leaves and completely removing extraneous shoots from overly dense areas. Korean hornbeam – July, 2011 After removing the unnecessary leaves, I decided to lower a few of […]
Decandling shohin black pine
Decandling Japanese black pines is the process of removing spring growth to produce summer growth. If we decandle early in the season, we give summer growth more time to mature and produce long needles. The converse is also true – decandling later produces shorter needles. For this reason, we typically decandle shohin pine bonsai about […]
How to create seedling cuttings – Japanese black pine
I began to describe the steps required to grow Japanese black pine bonsai from seed last year, but left off just after planting the seeds. I ended up abandoning last year’s batch as only a dozen seeds sprouted. I tried again this year with much better luck. Due to a cold spring, the seeds took […]