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 […]
Decandling
Decandling a cascade black pine in two stages
Decandling is a pruning technique where spring growth is removed to stimulate a second flush of growth over summer. The basic technique can be an effective way to produce dense foliage on black and red pines, and there are several variations that can help us balance vigor between weak and strong branches at the same […]
Spring maintenance on black pine – pulling needles and decandling
I’ve been working on the black pine below for twenty years. Every year, near the end of May or the beginning of June, I remove the spring growth and reduce the number of old needles. Japanese black pine I typically begin the work by removing the spring shoots (decandling) before reducing the number needles on […]
Initial branch refinement on Japanese black pine
The pine below, grown from seed by Eric Schrader, is in the early stages of branch development. The major sacrifice branch came off a couple of years ago, and the tree has been decandled at least one or two times before. Japanese black pine – 13 years from seed Lower trunk (tachiagari) and surface root […]
Transitioning from trunk development to branch refinement – Japanese black pine
A common approach to developing bonsai from scratch is to focus on trunk development first and branch refinement second. When we focus on developing the trunk, we generally encourage rapid growth until the trunk reaches the desired size. Much slower growth is useful when focusing on branch ramification. Between these two stages of development is […]