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 […]
Black Pine
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 […]
Transitioning from trunk development to branch refinement – Japanese black pine
A common approach to developing bonsai from scratch is to focus on trunk development first and branch refinement second. When we focus on developing the trunk, we generally encourage rapid growth until the trunk reaches the desired size. Much slower growth is useful when focusing on branch ramification. Between these two stages of development is […]
Teach Yourself Bonsai #2: How to create a bonsai calendar – Japanese black pine
If you’ve been working with bonsai for several years, you may have an idea of what needs to happen when. If you’re new to bonsai, or to a given species, it can be helpful to create a calendar to keep track of annual maintenance tasks. Here’s a guide to help you develop your own bonsai […]
New pot for an exposed root black pine
Just over a year ago, I reworked an exposed root black pine and started thinking about what kind of pot it could go in (see “Refining a young exposed root pine“). Exposed root black pine – December 2017 Last month I took the tree out of the pot, did some root work, and started looking […]