Two years ago, I showed a young black pine at Bay Island Bonsai’s 13th annual exhibit. Shohin black pine – January 2012 The tree has continued to develop, so I thought I’d show it again at BIB’s 15th annual exhibit. Here’s what the tree looked like last week. January 2014 I brought the tree to […]
Shohin
Repotting a shohin azalea
My shohin azalea was long overdue for repotting. I’d wanted to change the angle of the tree for some time as the main branch was too large to bend and the exposed roots were pointing almost straight up. Tipping the tree would approximate bending the main branch down and it would give the trunk better […]
Where should the apex go?
Some years back I dramatically shortened the trunk on the black pine below to create a small sized bonsai. Shohin black pine I regrew the apex from a branch that pointed forward. As a result, the apex wasn’t centered close to the base of the trunk. I figured this was fine as I’ve seen a […]
Decandling shohin black pine
Decandling Japanese black pines is the process of removing spring growth to produce summer growth. If we decandle early in the season, we give summer growth more time to mature and produce long needles. The converse is also true – decandling later produces shorter needles. For this reason, we typically decandle shohin pine bonsai about […]
Refining shohin black pine
Typical fall work for Japanese black pine: remove old wire, remove unnecessary branches and needles, wire remaining branches. This simple process can reveal a lot about a tree. I’d been thinking the shohin black pine below had the basics in place – good primary and secondary branches that could be quickly developed into an attractive […]