Although I’ve been growing shohin pines for years, last year I decided to try making mini-size trees around 4″-5″ tall. As most of these pines were over 12″ at decandling time, I did a lot of cutback when I decandled. Here’s an example. Black pine – about seven years old The tree above has a […]
Decandling
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 […]
Decandling a shohin black pine
Late June through mid-July marks the end of the decandling season in my area. This means it’s time to start working on the smaller pines in my garden. The tree below is sixteen-years-old. It grew strong this spring which is a reflection of the fact that the tree is still young and not fully ramified. […]
Slowing down sacrifice branches on black pine
When the trunk of a tree has reached the desired thickness, I evaluate the sacrifice branches to see if it makes more sense to remove them all at once or to remove them in stages. In many cases, removing large branches can cause vigorous new shoots to develop. This is especially true for species like […]
Cutback and decandling a field-grown black pine
I was happy to start working on a field-grown pine earlier this week. Long spring candles and healthy green needles suggested that the tree was strong enough to decandle, so the work started there (thanks for the help, Max!). We also removed some branches that were too large to use in the final design. Here’s […]