I recently picked up an eight year-old black pine growing in an Anderson flat. It had grown in the ground for several years and had been in the flat for the last one to two years. 8 year-old black pine As you can see from the photo above, most of the vigorous growth is located […]
Black Pine
From landscape tree to bonsai part 5
Six years ago, I started working on a large Japanese black pine that had been developed as landscape material. Japanese black pine – 2012 Over the years I reduced the tree to a single cascading branch (for the full story, see links to parts 1-4 below). Black pine – December 2017 Several years ago, the […]
Refining a young exposed root black pine
One of my favorite techniques for developing exposed root pines is bending the roots. To recap some of this work done last year, here are before and after photos on a 13 year-old pine. Before bending the roots After bending the roots and wiring primary branches Now that the basic form of the tree is […]
Exposing the roots on a young black pine
A few years after planting a seedling with the intention of exposing the roots is a good time to take a peek and see what’s happening beneath the soil. The black pine below was planted in its current container about three years ago. Black pine Based on how much the tree has grown, my guess […]
Creating exposed root pines – follow-up techniques
In the last post we looked at a technique for starting exposed root pine bonsai. When all goes according to plan, the tree will grow into its new container and look something like the photo below a year later. Exposed root pine one year after planting in a deep container The next step is easy […]