My New JBP may need a few grafts?

Hi,

I recently acquired this JBP. I'm told by the nursery that it was from a private collection and the guy had to sell it as he could no longer look after them (Japanese import originally). The nursery has then kept it for another two years to bring it back to health and they also had to take out a few dead branches which was is a shame. I just loved the base (10 inches across) and taper of the trunk:



Now the problem is the unchecked apex has shaded out all the lower branches and they have all become very leggy:


I'm told I have two options.
1. Let the lower branches grow unchecked for two seasons and then cut then back hard to promote back budding.
2. Graft new branches on. I this case which is better for JBP? approach grafting or sicon grafts?

I am also planning to thin out the top this winter to let more light into the lower branches of the tree.

I would love to get your opinions on how you guys would approach this trees issues if it were yours?

Drew,

Once the branches get old enough to have flakey bark like yours, they don't back bud very well, if at all. The growing-out, hard cut back probably won't work. You might get a few, but you need many!

I would scion graft this if you want quicker results. To approach graft, you need to grow long whips that you can bend back to where you want them.

The best time to do this is next spring. So, you havr all winter to get trained! Or find an expert to do it for you.

Meanwhile, there are things you can do NOW.

Was the tree decandled last summer? If yes, check to see if the needles have hardened off. How? Try pulling a this year's needle straight out with your fingers. If it comes off easily, it's not hardened off. If it gives you some resistance, and tries to hold it on, it is hardened off. If needles are not hardened, wait a couple weeks and try again.

If needles are hardened off, go ahead and pull old needles from previous year's growth. NORMALLY, this is also the time to thin shoots to two per terminal. DON'T do it this year! You'll need those shoots for grafting scions next spring!

Was the tree repotted recently? If no, plan a late winter repot. With this repot, you're not going to do a lot of root pruning. This is basically an "up pot" into a larger container with good bonsai soil that promotes a lot of quick root growth. So, when you repot, no root pruning, just tease out a half inch of feeder roots all around the sides. Made it "fuzzy" on the sides. Don't touch the bottom. When you up pot to a larger pot, the roots will be in the new soil and will grow quickly. I suggest you use Boon Mix.

Then scion graft. Use the medium strength shoots as scions. On some of the big lower branches, you can put in 3 or 4!

There is a Ryan Neil video on YouTube where he demonstrates grafting, he uses the method where you make a "cigar" of the scion using grafting tape. For doing a lot of grafts, I think that would be the easiest way.

Plan on doing twice as many grafts as you think you need. Not all will take.

Good luck!

why I see a lots of branches close to the trunk got cut?

namnhi said:

why I see a lots of branches close to the trunk got cut?

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I assume:

Drew said:

and they also had to take out a few dead branches

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namnhi said:

why I see a lots of branches close to the trunk got cut?

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They got shaded out by the upper foliage.

Pines will naturally sluff off low branches. If they get shaded out. It's one of the challenges with pines. They want to grow tall. That's where the sun is.

Look at a pine forest. Telephone pole trunks. No branches. All the foliage is at the top.

Compare that with a pine growing in an open field. Branches all the way from the top to the ground. The difference is the tree in the open field gets full sun everywhere. So low branches will live.

But even those will be bare inside the canopy.

We can't have that. We need "foliage close to the trunk".

To do that, we have to keep the apex thinned out so that sunlight can pierce the outside canopy, and light the interior of the tree. This keeps the interior branches alive. Eventually, no matter what you do, the branches will get too long and will need to be shortened. When you cut off some of the length of the branch, wire one of the secondary branches to replace it.

So... What has happened to this tree is the tree was never properly thinned to allow light inside. AND, The branches were never shortened. It just got leggier and leggier, and more and more bare inside.

It's kind of like a house that doesn't get any maintenance. You don't clean the gutters, it rots out the soffits. The gutters overflow, sending water into the foundation. The walls sag, doors don't hang properly, mold and mildue build up... Eventually, the whole house needs a complete rehab.

The same has happened to this tree.

Adair I like your analogy and your spot on. I was told the guy who owned it could no longer look after it and give it the care it needed.

Adair M said:

Was the tree decandled last summer? If yes, check to see if the needles have hardened off.

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Yes I think it was but not fully decandled, I can see some candle cuts but not many

Adair M said:

If needles are hardened off, go ahead and pull old needles from previous year's growth. NORMALLY, this is also the time to thin shoots to two per terminal. DON'T do it this year! You'll need those shoots for grafting scions next spring!

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Should I thin the shoots from the apex to let more sunlight into the lower part of the tree? and use the shoots from the ends of the lower branches for the grafts?

Adair M said:

Was the tree repotted recently? If no, plan a late winter repot.

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No i doubt that very much, almost impossible to insert a chopstick into the soil, when watering puddles on the surface, when you say late winter you mean just before spring when the weather starts warming up right? last couple of years I've been potting my pines up in spring April (I live in the UK)

Adair M said:

Plan on doing twice as many grafts as you think you need. Not all will take.

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How many grafts per branch do you think I should try?

As always thanks very much, I very much appreciate the time you take to pass on your knowledge to me and others on here.

Great trunk, good pickup, unfortunate branch situation. By the questions, I'd suggest that you enlist the help of a pro to graft new scions onto this tree; leaving it in his/her hands until they take. If it was my tree, it's exactly what I would do. It will likely mean the difference between a good bonsai in 5 years, or 10 years of frustration.

Know anyone who can graft somewhere near where you live?

Drew, I wouldn't cut any shoots off.

As I said, you could pull old needles. Ones that were produced in 2014 and before. That should open it up considerably.

If it is still too thick, then you could pull additional needles from this year's growth. But the caveat on going this step is the tree should be in excellent health. I'm not sure your tree is strong enough.

Brian's advice is sound. Do you have access to someone like Peter Warren or Graham Potter?

For example, if it were my tree, I'd have Boon do all the grafts. Especially when doing that many. I can do them, my success rate is about 50 percent. Boon's is close to 100 percent. Totally worth it.

I'd look up Steve Tolley, Dan Barton, Peter Chan. All have nurseries in England I believe. The best time to graft is probably February/March over there, and best if it can be left in a greenhouse to get off to a strong start.

Thanks Brian/Adiar I will ask around and see if I can enlist an experts help, although I would love to have a crack at it myself

Adair M said:

Do you have access to someone like Peter Warren or Graham Potter?

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HAHA I bought this tree off Graham Potter. He's the one that brought it back to health and suggested the grow and hard cut back method I suggested in my original post as option 1.

Another question I have: Is a grafted branch weaker than a naturally grown branch in the long run?

I've grafted JBP branches and they look just as strong as other branches at the moment, but I don't know about the long run. Not too worried.

There's a five needle pine with grafted branches over at the blog of Bill Valavanis
http://valavanisbonsaiblog.com/2014/11/24/autumn-2014-japan-bonsai-exploration-part-6-final/

Drew said:

Thanks Brian/Adiar I will ask around and see if I can enlist an experts help, although I would love to have a crack at it myself


HAHA I bought this tree off Graham Potter. He's the one that brought it back to health and suggested the grow and hard cut back method I suggested in my original post as option 1.

Another question I have: Is a grafted branch weaker than a naturally grown branch in the long run?

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Well, give it a try! It might work. But with grafting, you can choose where your branches will be.

So I slip potted this tree into a bigger pot in early spring without cutting any roots (just teased them out a bit).



I was hoping the tree would have kicked on and had larger candles and more vigorous growth but it doesn't seem like it wants to, the lower branches have the weaker candles:

But most of the branches and back budding on them as well and the candles improve the higher up the tree you go:



Candles towards the top



I would like to get more light into these buds. I'm in the 100 day window now, would you leave the bottom weaker branches alone and for the top half candle cut and pull needles, just pull needles or do nothing at all to this tree at this point?

Candle cutting:

IF YOU HAD MADE THIS POST A MONTH AGO, YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE THE FOLLOWING THREE PARAGRAPHS:

If you have any really weak interior candles on the lower part of the tree, leave them alone.

The candles around the outside of the bottom branches, cut them off now.

In 10 days, remove the candles in the middle section of the tree, and 10 days later, remove the strongest candles.

BUT SINCE IT IS 30 DAYS LATER, DO THIS:

Divide the tree up into the zones I described above. The really weak interior buds, leave alone.

The lower outside candles cut them off. Leave almost none of the neck. (The green stem between the base of the candle and the needles.)

The middle section, cut the candle and leave a little stub 1/4 to 1/2 inch.

The upper section, leave a longer stub 1/2 to 3/4 inch.

There are hormones in the stub that inhibit the secondary growth. The stubs will dry out. And when they do, the hormone stops. The weak candles with no stubs get a head start on the strong ones with more stub.

Thanks Adair! aaah ok cool, so in future I need to give it 130 days (not 100) and de-candle in 10 day intivals... GOT IT!

For this year though I'll use the stub method you have described.

Also, would you advise pulling needles on this tree to (5-7 pairs) in the strongest areas after I've de-candled it? or would that be too much at this stage for this tree?

After the adventitious buds emerge and grow, and harden off, around the end of October, you could pull the old needles.

That will open up the foliage a lot.

You will also likely get more than two new candles emerging from where you decandled this summer. Reduce these, keeping only two new shoots.

I wouldn't do any other needle pulling until next summer.

Ease into the needle pulling regimine. The tree has to adapt into its new growing conditions.

Many newbies read all these great techniques and want to amid them ALL! Right now!!! But the tree isn't ready.

Introduce one new technique at a time. Let the tree respond. (You'll see the result in 3 or 4 months). If it responds well, move on! If not, back off!

You'll see this concept also expressed as "One insult per Year". I would say, that's not absolutely true, it implies that you couldn't repot and decandle the same year. You can! I do regularly. But then again, my trees get decandled every year. They're "used to it". They have good root balls. Repotting isn't stressful.

If the tree had never been repotted, was in really bad soil, then, yeah, it's probably best not to decandle.

Got it?

Yep Gotcha Adair, thanks for the great advice! will keep you updated with how it gets on.

Update, here is the tree as of last weekend. I plan pulling old needles, reducing shoots to 2 and wiring the entire tree in the next few days. I'll post a after pic when done:

So the before and after pulling needles and shoot selection:



And this is after wiring which took me ages:


A few things:
- I tried to keep 12-15 needles on the lower branches, 10 in the middle and around 7 in the upper part. I found it hard to count needles on each bud so had to get a lamp setup to see better.
- When wiring it was quite easy to knock off needles and small buds.
- As you can see its quite leggy so will see how it buds back, if not a few grafts maybe in order.
- I used the guy wires instead of thick wire to avoid rubbing off the bark on the branches.

Still along way to go with this one and will hopefully be able to chase this leggy growth back now that its more open.

Your thoughts?