I finished decandling my black and red pines about a week ago. And since I’d neglected to pull needles or thin branches last fall, I did that work too. (If you’re new to decandling, see “Decandling: an in-depth guide” for details.) Here’s what this work looked like on an 18 year-old pine. Before decandling After […]
Corkbark Black Pine
Decandling young bunjin pines
A few years ago I came across a batch of slender black pine seedlings from a corkbark parent. They were wired for the first time one year ago and are now ready for decandling. Seedling from corkbark pine I shortened the apex and decandled the remaining branches before removing the old needles. After cutback After […]
Developing grafted cork-bark pines
Two years ago I received a note from Pete in Virginia about his work grafting dwarf and cork-bark black pines. He was curious if his grafting was appropriate for bonsai so he sent me some samples to evaluate. I’ve enjoyed working with these trees and would like to share some notes about each. They are […]
Setting design goals for refining mature bonsai
On Tuesday, I posted an update showing fall work on a cork-bark black pine (see “Cutback” for details). Today I’d like to critique the tree and talk about design goals for future development. For reference, here’s the tree after thinning the foliage and wiring key branches. Cork-bark black pine in a Gyozan pot – 24″ […]
Cutback on an old cork-bark black pine
It’s been a year-and-a-half since my last update on an old cork-bark black pine. I didn’t thin the tree last fall so the foliage was extra dense when I brought it into the workshop. Cork-bark black pine The cutback took several hours. Although it doesn’t look like it, I removed close to half of the […]