On a recent visit to the Golden State Bonsai Federation’s Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt, a number of trees with scars caught my attention. The first is a Coast oak collected from Carmel with extraordinarily small leaves. The scar has completely healed over and how adds interest to the already gnarly trunk. Coast live oak […]
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Decandling before and after – red pine forest
Decandling is a great technique for improving ramification or for maintaining it. What little ramification my red pine forest has can be attributed to a few years of decandling. I don’t currently have any plans to further develop the trunks in this forest, so the branches are getting all of my attention. Here is the […]
Decandling Japanese black pine
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 […]
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 […]