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 […]
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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 […]
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 […]
Refining cork bark black pine – decandling
Decandling my cork bark black pine was a straightforward process this year. I removed the spring growth and thinned unnecessary needles. I did not decandle weak shoots or shoots that grew in areas I’m trying to develop – mostly the lower branches on the right side. Here is the tree before decandling. Cork bark Japanese […]