I love this pine. I keep coming back to this thread to review. Would you please explain a bit on the work involved for development of the crown? And is it challenging because of the small size of the tree?
The view you're seeing in that photo is the rough front. The final front could be slightly to the right as that view shows a bit more movement, but then the cascading branch doesn't come forward as much.
Crown formation in JBP is easier in larger trees IMO than it is in smaller ones. If you look at the crown of
my large JBP that I've updated a few times the structure is more organic because I can simply trim branches to thin the tree and end up with branchlets that are evenly spaced.
http://bonsainut.com/index.php?threads/9-year-progression-large-jbp.10347/
On the other hand, doing that with a small pine doesn't really work- the small slant exposed root that I've posted takes hours of wiring with tweezers to get the crown to look even and full. If i just thinned it I wouldn't be able to get the shape needed, you can see it here:
http://bonsainut.com/index.php?thre...s-it-really-been-ten-years.17158/#post-230624
My "Aaron's Pine" thread also shows crown work on a shohin tree:
http://bonsainut.com/index.php?threads/jbp-aarons-mikawa.17289/#post-232592
That one took a lot of tweezer work too. What the two small trees have in common is a single point where many of the crown branches emerge.
For the tree that you asked about the single point is possibly there now, but there is only one branch fork. Here is a closeup of the top of the tree:
As you can see above, the top is a bit confused looking. Ideally, we'd like to see an even taper from the larger trunk below to smaller branching in the crown. In this case, the best taper is to the bud coming from the front of the stub at top middle, just right of the stub. But, the buds on the smaller branch just to the left of the large stub are in better shape and would more easily form a crown if spread out. Unfortunately, that branch starts lower down and doesn't have the taper that I want. So, I'm going to try to to nurse the buds that are up on the better tapered section along until I get a better crown going.
There is one other possible top on the tree, which is a small branch on the back of the top, in the photo below its just below and right of the larger scar, with cut needles:
After another year I'll likely go in and eliminate one or more of the candidates and leave the one that looks best.
One thing I've worked out is that once you start cutting off all the vigorous growth and decandling it can take a couple years to re-start a new top on a pine. Different climates will differ, but if you think you're going to want another trunk section it's best to start the transition earlier and reduce the original sacrifice after allowing the new sacrifice to gain some momentum.
Basically, if you have no crown on a tree, the best thing to do on a pine is to bend all the branching down. That causes the base of the shoots to be exposed to light, which means they will bud out in places when you decandle (at least on a healthy tree.) Repeating the process you can lay shorter branches over slightly longer ones and finally end up with some branching that is pointing straight up right in the middle of the top. The center of the crown then is essentially the last thing you grow when nearing a complete crown.
Once you have a complete (-ish) crown then you'll be thinning and using wire for positioning the new shoots while controlling the length through selective pruning to best maintain the silhouette and the balance of vigor.