For as much as I’ve written about pine care, I haven’t said much about cutback. Cutback can be tricky as there are many reasons to remove or not remove branches in given situations. Different teachers approach the topic differently, and often multiple approaches can yield good results. Ignoring any complexity for the time being, I’ll […]
Black Pine
Wiring 3 year-old black pines
Once black pine seedlings have developed a bit of a trunk, typically after two or three years, it’s time to start wiring. Following Daisaku Nomoto’s advice that young seedlings should develop slowly, I skipped repotting and wired the trees in their current 3″ pots. First I stripped away the lower needles to facilitate wiring, then […]
Repotting 1 year-old black pine seedlings
Last year I tried two different approaches to planting black pine seedling cuttings – planting them in individual containers, the approach I’d most often taken in the past, and planting groups of them together in terra cotta pots (see “How to pot seedling-cuttings“). While the seedling-cuttings planted in 3” pots did well, the ones planted […]
A project pine
I’m fond of referring to selected trees as “project” trees when the journey to become a bonsai is a long one. The black pine below has something resembling a bunjin feel – a euphemism, in this case, for a tree with no branches along the lower part of the trunk. I removed the top half of […]
From landscape tree to bonsai – part 3
Last year I started working on a Japanese black pine that was developed as a landscape tree (here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of the story). This year’s work was less exciting than last year’s, but it made me much happier. Why? Because I’m now committed to a design direction (i.e. I cut off most […]