I have a number of Japanese black pines that are transitioning from the development stage to the refinement stage. The trunk has thickened to the desired size and I’m starting to focus on branch development. As for the tree below, I’m happy with the trunk, but need to encourage the future leader to thicken. To […]
Black Pine
Creating cascade Japanese black pine
After creating many Japanese black pines in a variety of styles, I realized, last year, that I hadn’t made many cascade pines. When it came time to wire a batch of young trees, I wired several trunks downward. A year later, they looked like this. Young pine The first thing I noticed when I sat […]
Different approaches to exposed root pine bonsai
After discussing exposed root pines for the last few posts, I thought I’d wrap up the series with a few photos showing some different approaches to the style. The tree below is 23 years old. About midway between the soil and the first branch, the trunk splits into several roots that have essentially fused together. This […]
Improving exposed root pine bonsai with a single bend
As a number of you noticed in the last post, using a straight cylinder for creating exposed root pine bonsai can lead to a fairly uninteresting trunk line. This can be fixed easily – here’s how. Below is a photo of a 12 year-old pine trained in the exposed root style. There is a nice […]
Developing a new leader on exposed root pines
A few years ago I started a batch of exposed root pines – black and red. I let them grow for several years without wiring and they now look like this. Black pine trained in the exposed root style You’ll notice the trunk is completely straight – the least appropriate form for exposed root bonsai […]