Some of my cascade black pines are almost six years old. Black pine pre-bonsai Now that the basic curves are set, the main focus is to improve the branch structure. I do this by cutting back to two branches per intersection. After cutback It’s much easier to wire trees that have recently been thinned, so […]
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Cutback on an old cork-bark black pine
It’s been a year-and-a-half since my last update on an old cork-bark black pine. I didn’t thin the tree last fall so the foliage was extra dense when I brought it into the workshop. Cork-bark black pine The cutback took several hours. Although it doesn’t look like it, I removed close to half of the […]
Five patterns for pulling needles on black pine
When thinning needles on black or red pine, I treat branches differently based on my goals for refining them. I typically want weak branches to grow stronger and strong branches to slow down, but there are cases in which I take a different approach. Here are the five most common patterns I follow and notes […]
Refining a 15 year-old black pine
One of my favorite things about working on trees I’ve had for a long time is that the work is straightforward. My normal pattern is to spend the first few years of a tree’s time in my garden getting it healthy. Once the tree is healthy, I can spend the next few years doing any […]
Tracking down banding symptoms in black pine
I was surprised to find yellow banding on a few of my pines this fall. It’s not something I’ve seen much of in my garden over the years so it caught my attention when small yellow patches appeared. Yellow banding on black pine needles The overall health of the needles is good, and the damage […]