After developing the branches on a black pine for the past nineteen years, it was time to give the tree a haircut. Black Pine After reducing the apex When I acquired the tree twenty years ago, it was much taller. After showing it at Bay Island Bonsai’s second exhibit, I removed the top third of […]
Black Pine
Refining a field-grown black pine
The pine below is several years out of the ground and is showing signs of becoming a bonsai. Japanese black pine In the past year, I wired the primary branches and made two grafts near the apex. This winter, I thinned crowded areas and rewired the branches. Here’s the tree after thinning. After pruning and […]
Refining a young root over rock black pine
I’ve been working on a root over rock black pine for the past two years. The tree was created by Eric Schrader (phutu.com) and is thirteen years old. Root over rock black pine The basic branches are set, but need refinement, and the new apex needs to thicken. To improve the branch structure, I thinned […]
Cutting back and wiring a young cascade pine
Some of my cascade black pines are almost six years old. Black pine pre-bonsai Now that the basic curves are set, the main focus is to improve the branch structure. I do this by cutting back to two branches per intersection. After cutback It’s much easier to wire trees that have recently been thinned, so […]
Five patterns for pulling needles on black pine
When thinning needles on black or red pine, I treat branches differently based on my goals for refining them. I typically want weak branches to grow stronger and strong branches to slow down, but there are cases in which I take a different approach. Here are the five most common patterns I follow and notes […]