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Back to decandling...

Why does it work? There's a hormone in the growing tips called auxin that suppresses the growth of the adventitious buds. When we remove the candle, we remove the auxin, so the adventitious buds are no longer suppressed, so they can now grow.

So as a horticulturalist.... this is a super simplified explanation of an incredibly complex function. Please remember, the presence of auxin has a definite purpose in it's suppression properties.... It goes to the old axiom that the tree is always growing.... either above the ground or below it. When auxin is present in the terminal buds, it is suppressing lateral growth.... the suppression of the lateral growth in turn promotes root growth.

It also provides a variety of other functions around all cellular growth - including fruiting/reproductive... which is why plants can adapt to changing conditions. When you see a tree tip and bend because of changes in the light and it's environment... it is auxin which has helped it. It's as vital a part of the life process as the balance of estrogen and testosterone is in humans.

Thus the moral of the comment.... be SURE of the health of your tree before doing these kinds of processes. A weak tree which has demands placed upon it, will likely give up the ghost.

V
 

Adair M

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Thanks, Vic, I KNEW a horticulturalist would come along and provide additional insight!

I have no idea about the lateral root growth, or what ever it was you said... but I will say this: You're RIGHT you only want to do this on strong trees. To prepare for this we fertilize heavy during the spring when the spring candles are growing. I assume the roots are growing then, too. Now, I use poo balls and liquid fish emulsion as fertilizer. During the spring, I add a couple poo balls each week. I use the fish emulsion weekly, too. When I decandle, I remove the the poo balls. Sure, there's still some debris down in the soil. If there's a LOT, I'll do soji and remove the top half inch of old soil and replace with new. When the new buds sprout needles, I start again with the fertilizer. Same way, adding some each week until the fall needle pulling/wiring time.

And it's ok if every couple years, you give the tree a rest and don't decandle. Let it build up it's strength again. Decandling IS very stressful for the tree. I have two JBP I'm giving this year off. Decandling will resume next year for those two.

Ok, a couple of pictures:

The picture of the flowers is my "canary in the coal mine". You know carnaries are sensitive to toxic fumes, and they had them in the coal mines... if the canary died, it meant the air was toxic? Well, this flower, some kind of impatiens I think, wilts if it gets dry. If it's dry, it means I better go water my trees!

The other picture is my JBP project tree. I decandled it last July 4. The branch pictured is the top of the sacrifice branch. I'm in the process of removing it, so I'm trying to weaken it, so I decandled it, but, wow! is it strong. Look at all the adventitious buds and needle buds it's pushing out!
 

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jeanluc83

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The following is from Wikipedia:

An important principle of plant organization based upon auxin distribution is apical dominance, which means the auxin produced by the apical bud (or growing tip) diffuses (and is transported) downwards and inhibits the development of ulterior lateral bud growth, which would otherwise compete with the apical tip for light and nutrients. Removing the apical tip and its suppressively acting auxin allows the lower dormant lateral buds to develop, and the buds between the leaf stalk and stem produce new shoots which compete to become the lead growth. The process is actually quite complex, because auxin transported downwards from the lead shoot tip has to interact with several other plant hormones (such as strigolactones or cytokinins) in the process on various positions along the growth axis in plant body to achieve this phenomenon. This plant behavior is used in pruning by horticulturists.

Finally, the sum of auxin arriving from stems to roots influences the degree of root growth. If shoot tips are removed, the plant does not react just by outgrowth of lateral buds — which are supposed to replace to original lead. It also follows that smaller amount of auxin arriving to the roots results in slower growth of roots and the nutrients are subsequently in higher degree invested in the upper part of the plant, which hence starts to grow faster.

To read it all go here.
 

Adair M

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Jeanluc,

Your quoted passage reminds me of a little story Peter Tea told me...

Peter was told by his Master in Japan to go fertilize the trees. "Ok", said Peter. "With what?"

Mr. Tanaka: "Cotton seed meal."

Peter: "OK. What it's content?"

no answer.

Peter: "You know, Nitrogen, Potassium, Phosphorus..."

no answer.

Peter: "The chemicals..."

Mr. Tanaka: "IT'S COTTON SEED MEAL! IT WORKS!!!"


LOL!!! Sometimes things work even if we don't know all the details!

No, it's nice to know why stuff works the way it does. Thank you Vic and Jeanluc,
 

Adair M

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More on decandling technique. (You knew there'd be more technique, right?)

There are two schools of thought on decandling. Both work. One school is the 10 day school. The other school is the "do the whole tree in one day" school. I subscribe to the "all in 1 day" school. But, let me describe both. You can choose which one you like best. FYI, I believe Brian Van Fleet, another accomplished JBP artist prefers the 10 day school.

The 10 day school:

It's called the 10 day school because you will come around to each tree every 10 days to decandle parts of the tree. The tree is divided up into zones: Strong, medium, weak, and very weak. The zones concept is common to the 10 day and the all in 1 day technique. Under both schools, the very weak candles are NOT decandled. These are usually the newly popped back buds, weak buds on lower branches and interior buds. Leave these alone until they grow strong enough to be considered at least "weak" instead of "very weak".

Decandle the "weak" buds on day one. We do the weak buds first to give them more growing season (summer) to grow back.

10 days later, come back and do the medium candles.

And finally, 10 days later, come back and do the strong buds.

The idea is that at the end of the growing season, all the buds will show about the same strength. Remember that "balancing" stuff. Yeah, we're back to that, again.

Now, when you decandle using the 10 day school, you cut the candle straight across right at the bottom of the candle using sharp scissors. Cut it flat across. Don't leave a stub, but don't cut into last year's growth either. Doing so would remove the dormant (invisible) adventitious buds we want to grow.

Ok, got it?

That's the "old school" way, and it works great. Except, wow, I can hardly remember to take my blood pressure medicine on a daily basis, I would lose track of 10 days, which candles am I doing today? etc. (Let's not even MENTION my wife's birthday and our Anniversary, ok? Thanks!)

The All in 1 day school:

Same zones as before, and again, don't mess with the very weak. We're going to cut all the other candles on the tree. But, here we're going to use some Vic's and Jeanluc's auxin to help us out. The weak candles, cut off at the base, just as with the 10 day method. The medium candles, cut them off straight across, but leave a bit of stubb. Maybe an 1/8 to a 1/4 inch. The strong candles, leave more stub. Maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch. Do the whole tree. You're done.

Ten days later, call Brian Van Fleet and remind him to go decandle his trees! LOL!!! Just kidding!!

What happens is the auxin that remains in the stub still suppresses the adventitious buds for a little while until the stub dries up. Leaving a longer stub keeps more auxin around for longer.

At the end of the summer, both techniques produce the same results! The one day technique does have one disadvantage, however. It leaves a stub. I clean those up when I do the fall bud selection. I examine the new buds, remove the ones I don't want, and remove the stub remaining from the decandling. If I had done the 10 day thing, there would be no stub.

Things to bear in mind:

Use sharp scissors.

Cut straight across the candle, not on the diagonal.

Timing is important. WHEN you decandle has a lot to do with how long your needles will be. Decandle early in the summer, the tree has longer to grow until fall, your needles will be longer. Waiting until later in the summer, your needles will be shorter because there's a shorter growing season.

Therefore, decandle shohin trees later in the summer!

Those of you who live in the northern climes will decandle before us Southerners do. Boon decandles in late May, early June. I don't decandle until July 4th. (Why July 4th? It's a date I can remember. Unlike my wife's birthday.) I do my shohin 10 days later, July 14th day. It's Bastille Day. I have a mini I did a week after that.

Some trial and error on your part will determine what the right day for you. And don't forget that Mother Nature has a say in this. Some summers may be wet and cool, you wont get the growth you usually do. But a general rule of thumb (remember, I like rules!) is to give your trees 100 days before the first frost to grow summer candles. For me, that's around Halloween. So, decandling during July gives the trees a little over 100 days to grow.

Jonas on his blog. Bonsai Tonight has posted some excellent photos on decandling techniques.

Jonas is also one of Boon's first students. No one calls him an SOB. He shares extensive information on his blog. Complete with excellent pictures. If you think the info I've put in this thread is good, check out www.bonsaitonight.com. It's better. WAY better.
 

garywood

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I don't want to detract from Adair's great thread but just a "little" aside. Anyone interested in Auxin or auxin\sugar transduction pathways should focus on current research. If it's older than 10 years then there will probably be a need to rethink the understanding of these rolls. About 10 years ago major observational capabilities started. Electron microscopes coupled with splicing florescent jellyfish genes, radiocarbon tracking and a whole host of observational techniques that weren't available 60 years ago when the auxin model expressed.
 

davetree

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I don't want to detract from Adair's great thread but just a "little" aside. Anyone interested in Auxin or auxin\sugar transduction pathways should focus on current research. If it's older than 10 years then there will probably be a need to rethink the understanding of these rolls. About 10 years ago major observational capabilities started. Electron microscopes coupled with splicing florescent jellyfish genes, radiocarbon tracking and a whole host of observational techniques that weren't available 60 years ago when the auxin model expressed.

Wow. "Little" ? Thanks Gary.

Also Thanks Adair for sharing this.
 
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Adair M

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Lessee... where was I?

The summer Intensive.

We about covered decandling. What else? Oh, yeah! Needle pulling and wiring! How unusual!

No, seriously, we pull needles AGAIN to achieve balance. And wire.

If we need to remove wire that has cut in, obviously, we do that first.

Wiring RIGHT AFTER decandling is a good time to do it. Waiting a week or so is not. By then the new adventitious buds will have started, and they're super delicate. So, the two best times to wire are: Fall after the summer needles have hardened, and summer right after decandling.

Now the observant among you have probably noticed that almost all my discussion (with the exception of the maple branch building stuff) has been about JBP. That's been my choice. I love JBP and I really want to master them.

Well, that's pretty much it. I described all three of the Intensive classes. I've been to each one twice, and have one more year to go. Plus doing the show Intensive.

General observations not otherwise mentioned:

The other students: Obviously the first one I attended, everyone was new to me. But since then, I have always had at least one fellow participant that has been in another class with me before. There's always a mix of veterans and newbies, and that keeps it interesting. Fellow students, other SOBs if you will, have a certain camaraderie that I guess the Marines impart on their recruits. Yes, Boon is tough on us, especially on our wiring technique. Make it through several sessions, and you know you have "the right stuff". We all come from different parts of the country. I'm from Georgia, there have been other students who were locals, two from North Carolina, several Texans, one from Utah, Arizona, Vancouver, pretty much all over. And therefore the trees that each person can grow is different due to the differing climates. Boon is confident with all the various species and climates. He's remarkable.

I've recently been following Boon on Facebook, and he travels all over the country doing workshops and privates. His knowledge of all the species and styles is amazing. I see the trees he's worked on, and I'm humbled with the realization of what little I know in comparison.

Part of the time, during the classroom portion of class, he will open up a show book or a magazine to remark about this or that tree. And he'll say that he worked on it, or he restyled it, or something. I feel lucky to be able to learn from him.

The workshop: It took me a while to figure out where everything is. He has cabinets with extra wire and tools. I still don't know. Usually Dylan, his apprentice is there, and I'll ask him. Boon doesn't tell you, you have to figure it out. He uses turntables made from old barber chairs as workstations. And height adjustable chairs. Again, he wants to to wire working at a particular height, and set branches while looking at the tree from another height. He often catches me hunched over a tree, and he comes over to adjust either the turntable height or the chair height so that I'm more comfortable. There's my 40 years of bad habits coming out again!

He likes to lay out the wire in a particular way. I've become accustomed to it now, and when I go other places to wire, I find myself setting up the same way. I guess I'm beginning to create new, good habits, now.

The dogs: Boon has two Taiwanese Mountain rescued dogs. That is, they're Taiwanese Mountain dogs that came from a rescue service. My first Intensive, Boon had just gotten them. We were the first students the dogs were exposed to. I'm lucky to still have all my body parts! They were quite shy and snappy. They're MUCH better now. Actually they've become friendly!

The Garden: Bench after bench after bench, each holding 2 or 3 dozen trees. Finished shohin in front, taller trees in the middle. Rougher stock toward the back, raw stock on the far right. There's a shade cloth area for the maples, even a greenhouse for the tropicals. I've set foot in the greenhouse one time. Great tropicals in there, but I'm not interested in them so I haven't paid them any attention. If you like tropicals, they're great!

There's usually time to poke around in the garden early in the morning after Boon brings us from the hotel, and he goes to make coffee. My first morning there, I try to find my trees. The one that's my avatar, I can find pretty easily. It's always in about the same place up near the front. I have two other rougher JBP from Lone Pine, a Western juniper we're grafting kishu onto and a kishu shohin. The Western is always the hardest to find for some reason. It's growing like a weed in the Boon Mix, so it looks different each time I see it!

I've also seen trees that other Boon students own and keep at Boon's, and have posted on this site and others. Some have been entered into Bill Valvanis's National Show in Rochester. It's fun to actually see the trees in person that you had seen photo of. Invariably, they are even more impressive in person, with the exception of the pots. Sometimes, it's because they're kept in training pots, and only placed in fine show pots for the show. Sometimes they're in their show pot, it's just that the show pot isn't "socked".

"Socked". Here's another technique! To clean up pots for a show, take about a quarter cup of walnuts, just the meats, and put them in the toe of an old sock. Pound the walnuts in the sock with a hammer. This releases the oil into the sock. Use a bit of wire to contain the walnuts in the toe. Now, use the toe of the sock, and rub the outside of the pot. It cleans it up, deepens the color of unglazed pots without putting on a sheen, or removing the patina! Do it about a week before the show, and it will have even less "shine" and still display the rich color. I've heard "camellia oil" does the same thing. I like the walnuts.

Well, that's what I can think of for now, I'll be happy to answer questions.

It would also be great if a Ryan Neil student or Haggedorn student would post a similar thread!

Hint, hint!
 

Vance Wood

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It would be nice if everyone who thinks they have something to share would start a thread, what took you so long?
 

Adair M

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I don't know, Vance, it's been easier for me to comment on others, I suppose. I also had not taken the time to figure out how to post photos. Wow, it takes a long time for my internet provider to upload them! The perils of living in a small town, I suppose.

I have started threads on BSG. I see you've posted over there. If you look, you'll see several of my threads over there. When you said you couldn't log in, I contacted the admin. And he found there's been a problem since they changed servers. That's fixed now.
 

Vance Wood

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I don't know, Vance, it's been easier for me to comment on others, I suppose. I also had not taken the time to figure out how to post photos. Wow, it takes a long time for my internet provider to upload them! The perils of living in a small town, I suppose.

I have started threads on BSG. I see you've posted over there. If you look, you'll see several of my threads over there. When you said you couldn't log in, I contacted the admin. And he found there's been a problem since they changed servers. That's fixed now.

Yes and thank you for your help and your posts.
 

Adair M

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A year ago in May, Boon came to the Atlanta Bonsai Society to judge the annual show. He held a workshop, and did a couple of public demonstrations during his two day stay. Of course I attended the workshop with my big JBP. And attended the demonstration. Or, tried to! No, he saw me, and made me help him! One time it was with a procumbens juniper, the other was a serrissa.

Both times, he cut off a small branch as part of his pruning, and said, "Adair, demonstrate a Figure 5". Uh... Figure 5? I knew Figure 3, and Figure 15, but what in the world was a figure 5? Boon says to the audience, "Adair is my student. He's knows what I'm talking about about!" Geez! Now the pressure is REALLY on! So, I decide to do a figure 15. That's the more difficult of the 3 and 15, so that's what I did. And that is what Boon meant.

Now, it's kinda difficult to hold a branch and wire it, too. So, I kinda struggled with it. But got it done. Showed it to Boon, he approved. Then it got passed around the audience. Whew!

Rodney Clemons was there, and asked, "Boon, do you loan Adair out? I need a bunch of trees wired." Very funny, Rodney! Rodney and I are old friends. We started bonsai about the same time back in the 70's, been on collecting trips together.

Anyway, I'll see if I can get a picture of Figure 3 and Figure 15.

Hold on for the pictures...
 

Adair M

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Here's two pages from the famous hand out.

Figure 3 shows how to wire a fork. Boon prefers to have the wire run across the top of the branch when wiring the branch down. Notice that each wired twig will have the spiral going in opposite directions. One will be clockwise, the other will be counter-clockwise.

A common wiring mistake is to run the wire between the two branches, thru the middle of the V. Boon calls this "Ying-yang". If wired ying-yang, both branches would be either clockwise or both would be counter-clockwise. I think that why some may do it that way, thinking both should spriral the same way. At least, that's what my students tell me.

It was interesting that Bjorn on one of his videos stated that he often chose to run the wire across the bottom of the base of the V when doing Figure 3's because he thought the wire was less noticeable.

Figure 15 is more complicated.

First off, notice the angle the sub-branches are from the center mainline. Somewhere about 30 to 45 degree angles. The branch at the tip is even tighter. They're shaped like a narrow V rather than a n L.

Also note the branches alternate. Right, left, right. Much, much easier to wire that way. So, to make the tree easier to wire, prune for good branch structure.

There's a heavy wire running up the center mainline. B1 points out where one wire is used to wire the first two sub-branches. B2 shows where one wire is used to wire the terminal tip to the last sub-branch.

The idea is to make every branch look like Figure 15. Oh were life so easy!
 

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Smoke

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When wiring branchlets down, the back of the wire has to be below the main branch. If it is on top it will rock. On the bottom the branch becomes the fulcrum and the loop has purchase against the bottom of the loop and offers resistance.

It is so easy to do. Everyone should try it to see what I mean. You only need a forked branch and 8 inches of wire to understand simple physics of the process. If You wish to bend the tips up from the main branch then yes, start the wire on top.
 

markyscott

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Adair,

We prune to horizontal only when building ramification then?

Sorce

From Boon's pruning handout. It's a 1999 Kinbon article. See in figure 19, they prune back to a top bud which will form the branch leader. The side branches are developed from the horizontal buds behind the leader. The bottom buds are not used. Hope this helps.

Scott
 

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0soyoung

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When wiring branchlets down, the back of the wire has to be below the main branch. If it is on top it will rock.

I think you've said this backwards.

As you've pointed out on prior occasions, one bends the wire to direct the branches downward. When you release, the branches try to spring back upward. A startling loop underneith will be pushed away from the union - hence, the wire "doesn't hold".
 
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Smoke

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I think you've said this backwards.

As you've pointed out on prior occasions, one bends the wire to direct the branches downward. When you release, the branches try to spring back upward. A startling loop underneith will be pushed away from the union - hence, the wire "doesn't hold".


Have you tried this with the wire and forked branch yet? Why type a bunch or words, just do the exercise.
 
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