While maintenance work like minor cutback or wiring can make a tree shine, it’s the larger cuts that really speed along development. Of course, we don’t always enter workshops expecting to make these big cuts. Such was the case for a tree that showed up to last weekend’s Bay Island Bonsai workshop. After selecting a […]
Black Pine
Refining a black pine
One of my longer term projects has been a black pine grown in the ground at Lone Pine Gardens. It looks like a somewhat normal tree save for a few extraneous over-size branches. The large branch in the front is the new apex – the branch on the right is helping the trunk thicken. Black pine […]
Refining a 10 year-old pine
Rather than make long term goals for trees, I’ll often make short to medium-term plans based on the current condition of the tree. This is true for many of the black pines I’ve been growing from seed, especially the ones for which I can’t see obvious futures. The pine below is one of these trees. […]
Refining young pines
A number of my young black pines are now 10 – almost 11 – years old. Depending on what they look like, I’m making cuts, repotting or letting them grow. The pine below has a number of exposed roots. As the main trunk growing up and to the right will not be part of the […]
Encouraging grafted foliage
The grafts I made to some young black pines have now been in place for 10 months. If I continue to let the original foliage grow unchecked, the trees will have little reason to invest in the grafted branches. As I want to replace the original growth with these scions from a cork bark pine, […]