A few of my pines

Shibui

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Here are a few of my Japanese Black pines in various states of development.
The older ones suffered for years as I tried to work out how pines grow and respond to pruning. I live in a reasonably remote area so have little access to bonsai help. Closest clubs are 300km in one direction and 400 in the other. Consequentially I have learnt a lot by trial and error which does make the whole process vert slow. On the other hand I have found that I can actually do a number of things that the experts tell me are impossible, simply because I was never told that it can't be done.

Pictures are (my) mid summer so I have not yet thinned out all the buds after decandling earlier in summer. Still a mix of longer and shorter needles until I get into a good maintenance regime.

My older pines grew happily for many years despite being regularly bare rooted or styled and repotted in the same season. Due to incorrect pruning and maintenance they developed long, bare branches with tufts of foliage at the ends - terrible bonsai but good trunks. I've spent the past 10 years trying different techniques to get better ramification and foliage closer to the trunk.
Just a couple of seasons of maintenance pruning to start developing better ramification and smaller needles but I think it is starting to come along reasonably well.
This one acquired as a 1 or 2yo seedling. The long, bare branches have dictated a rather wild styled tree but I'm happy with it so far.
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Younger ones have been developed with more information so are a little more compact.
Root over rock style from seed. Only a couple of years into maintenance pruning and still plenty of sorting out to do on the branches.
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More recently I've been developing smaller trees. The next few are 5-10 years old from seed.
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This twin trunk came from 2 seedlings threaded through a hole drilled in stainless steel sheet which forced them to unite and grow new, flat nebari
From seed
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Another older tree, probably a sibling of the first picture posted. accidental breakage when wiring branches have left limited options.
P1200842.JPG
 

Adair M

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Those will look great in a couple of months after you summer candles mature and harden off, and you pull the old needles!

It would be worth it for you to watch Boon’s JBP training videos series. You can rent them very economically from his web site: www.bonsaiboon.com.
 

Anthony

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And @Shibui ,

thought about you, when 2 accidental discoveries of hardwood J.B.pines
cuttings were planted for onward growing.

Once again, thank you for pointing the way.

Down here we now have our own supply of good stock as
J.B.pines go.
Good Day
Anthony
 

LanceMac10

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Seven JBP is a lot to handle, no matter what methods your using!!!o_Oo_Oo_Oo_Oo_Oo_Oo_O


Some strategic pruning and some needle-pulling, along with some wiring to open up the structure, would do wonders I'll bet!:cool::cool:
Looks like a lot of fairly young branches where you might get some back budding afterwards. Better results following a good season of heavy fert and water, perhaps?
Some nice material, all some pretty good trees with lots of potential. Great stuff!:):):D:D:D:D:D
 

Nanuk

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Thanks for sharing the pics. Really nice trees.
I really like number one.
 

Shibui

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Thanks for the comments everyone.
These trees have only had a few seasons of proper pine maintenance pruning so there is still imbalance in branch and shoot strength. I'm told it will take a few years to get overall balance so I will persist with current strategy for a little longer before making changes.

Here are a couple of Japanese Red pines. These seem to respond far better to the maintenance regime. Masses of buds build up branch density very quickly and far smaller needles after only one year.
P1200839.JPG

I've only just started decandling and maintenance on this second one after establishing the roots over the rock so needles are still a bit wild. Autumn needle plucking and shoot selection should make a big difference.
P1200843.JPG

Finally (for now) a single Mugho.
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That one spent a few years in the ground to develop some size and you can see by the jin that some larger branches have been removed.
I have not yet worked out appropriate maintenance for the mugho as growth is different from the 2 needle pines. Back budding is usually prolific following pruning.

I have noted from other threads that some of you feel that mugho needs winter chill to do well but this seems to grow OK here where winter min is just below freezing, snow is very rare and summer daytime is regularly above 40C (100F). Maybe they grow even better in cooler climates? I have no way to compare growth rates, etc. I've had this one for around 30 years after striking it as a cutting.
 

WesB

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A few of these got me going. Turn up the AC!
 

0soyoung

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have noted from other threads that some of you feel that mugho needs winter chill to do well but this seems to grow OK here
Thanks for the note.
You are in a usda zone 9b and have about 3 months where the average low temperature is less than about 5C. So your mugo gets less than 1000 hours, but definitely not zero, chilling hours. It is sufficiently warmer in San Francisco (which is in USDA zone 10) where the average lows are all well above 5C, to say that the annual chilling hours can probably be counted on ones digits.

The zones are purely for winter hardiness and are based on the the minimum annual low temperature. Temperate plants sugar up their living tissues to survive freezing, but this just means the cell water won't freeze and crystallize to fatally puncture the cell walls until some lower temperature - the hardiness limit. It doesn't pertain directly to bud chill, but we do know that in zone 11b there will be zero bud chill because temperatures never get as low as 5C. blah, blah, blah ...
 
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