I’m used to the pines in my garden looking a certain way. They usually yellow a little in fall and green up again in spring – only this spring, many remained yellow. I figured part of that was a result of fertilizing late this year. But even after fertilizing for a couple of months, many […]
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Another look at balancing vigor on a black pine with a sacrifice branch
The pine below is getting close to its final shape. Japanese black pine – 15 years old from seed As you can see from the photo, there is a large gap in vigor between the sacrifice branch and the lower branches. After decandling and thinning needles on the lower branches – standard work for pines […]
Balancing vigor on pines with sacrifice branches
Decandling time is a good opportunity to balance vigor between sacrifice branches and the rest of the tree. This is especially true for pines nearing the end of the development phase. Last year I let the sacrifice branches grow on several pines while decandling the lower branches. As a result, the sacrifice branches became overly […]
Spring maintenance on black pine – pulling needles and decandling
I’ve been working on the black pine below for twenty years. Every year, near the end of May or the beginning of June, I remove the spring growth and reduce the number of old needles. Japanese black pine I typically begin the work by removing the spring shoots (decandling) before reducing the number needles on […]
Initial branch refinement on Japanese black pine
The pine below, grown from seed by Eric Schrader, is in the early stages of branch development. The major sacrifice branch came off a couple of years ago, and the tree has been decandled at least one or two times before. Japanese black pine – 13 years from seed Lower trunk (tachiagari) and surface root […]