Best money I spent on black pines

Just Duane

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If anyone is serious about japanese black pines, you really really need to get Boons dvd's http://www.bonsaiboon.com/pages/shopping.html

You cannot go wrong spending money on professional expert advice. Boon walks you through repotting, decandling, wiring & styling, & even fall maintanence. You watch boon do the work on his own trees. Plain & simple, I have no doubt anyone who buys his dvd's will agree, its the best money spent on black pines:).............Buy these dvd's, watch them, then go buy a tree from Don http://www.gregorybeachbonsai.com/ :):)
 

jferrier

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Duane:
I only saw the dvd for repotting black pines. Is there another on styling?
 

Just Duane

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Duane:
I only saw the dvd for repotting black pines. Is there another on styling?


Yes, theres repotting, decandling, wiring & styling & fall maitanence. You can buy the bundle pack (highly suggested) which will save you some money. I would never try to steer any b-nuts wrong & I have never met Boon, but I swear on my trees graves, you will understand & learn a ton from these videos. Like I said earlier, its the best money i've spent on black pines.
 

mcpesq817

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I'd echo these recommendations. Boon's JBP DVDs really cleared up the mystery of JBP techniques. I just ordered his two DVDs on japanese maples, and am looking forward to learning from them.

One book on pines that people recommend is the Stone Lantern book, which I believe is being reprinted and available soon. I own that book, and would say that the Boon DVDs far and away are much better resources. The Stone Lantern book is ok, but the big problem I have with it is that is merely reprints a number of old Bonsai Today articles. That would be fine except that there didn't appear to be any editorializing to ensure that terms were used consistently across the various articles when discussing the techniques to be used. To me, this was very disappointing as I think it lended to unnecessary confusion.
 

jferrier

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Yes, theres repotting, decandling, wiring & styling & fall maitanence. You can buy the bundle pack (highly suggested) which will save you some money. I would never try to steer any b-nuts wrong & I have never met Boon, but I swear on my trees graves, you will understand & learn a ton from these videos. Like I said earlier, its the best money i've spent on black pines.

Maybe it hiding in plain site, but I only saw the repotting black pines dvd available on his website.
 

biglou13

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videos are great

wiring vid will also apply to other species, it covers wiring 101 in addition to JBP.

clarified much info and pulled together all the bits and pieces of knowledge i've collected.

all my JPB's are all in growing stages. 10 year project at minimum.(i'll have a some good stock when retired)

i'd like to see more info perhaps a video on growing out---
root pruning, nebari development, pot, smart pot, ground growing, how the Japanese produce such amazing stock as seen in tyler farar (sp) vids. and inducing back budding and trunk selection and growth aka brent W.. feeding/techniques for max growth/health , disease control, early stage development of different styles like twin trunk, shonin, sumo, cascade, snake style, exposed root, etc etc and tips from the US based sources of decent stock.....
 

pwk5017

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Biglou, you just spoke my mind for me. I am 23 and have been seriously involved in bonsai for 4 or so years. I bought my first tree at the age of 12, but I wouldnt consider those teen years to be "serious". I have been growing JBP and JRP from seed for 3-4 years, and there is VERY little on growing them out. Yes, there is the stone lantern book, blah blah blah, but what does that book really educate you on? For me, it was creating seedling cuttings. After that, it is merely some suggestions on fertilizing and then the colander trick. It doesnt cover anything specific on wiring trunk movement or getting buds in the locations you need/want them. Overall, the book is a C. Next, brent certainly gets into some of the details and techniques that I desperately want(the best info is in his blog posts, not the articles), but this info lacks some details and specifics on budbreak and rootwork. It is free so I will give it a B/B+. There are a couple other resources, and they are on bonsaiforum or bonsai vault....idk, they are at another bonsai forum, but once again they just cover the seedling cutting process. This leaves me with the final resource and what I think to be one of the best bets for some serious content on developing pine bonsai from seed--Jonas Dupuich the author of bonsai tonight. He has studied with boon for almost as long as I have been alive, and he has been growing pine from seed for over a decade. I should write him and ask him to make a dvd with boon on developing pines from day 1. Finally, the boon pine dvds rock. You can get them all for $100 and whats best is you can consistently watch them. I usually watch them once a year in the winter just to remind myself that green things do exist.
 

biglou13

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if were not stepping on thread...


what ?'s do you have on bud break. ive had a few email's with brent. im pretty confident in getting a JBP to get low breaks. and early root development. its the later years development work i have?'s on

i started with 2/0 i think and in retro would have done more radical root work early on. now at 5 y/o next years goal is to: get low bud breaks on some trees i havent worked yet. and on others (my biggest ?) remedial, root work. im getting some that growth rate is close to in ground from the smart pots. im excited to see results on some smart pot to ground that go in this spring.
 

pwk5017

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Ok, I have a series of JBP and JRP stock that is 4 years old, 3 years old and then several hundred that are 1 and two years old. I just began using the seedling cutting technique two years ago, so I would say 50% of the 3-4 year olds have poor nebari, but 25% have excellent nebari. I have two major questions: Some of my 3-4 year old pines began popping lower buds after repotting this year(where no needles were present). I have never pruned these pines at all, so what caused them to budback and others not too? Still, these buds are 2-3" above the base. I sort of want a low bud at the roots, so I can achieve an awesome base. Second question, is about taper and movement. I understand you need sacrifice branches to create taper etc, but to create movement at the base, how much should you wire the tree? I wired mine and let it cut in, and what I thought was "a little crazy" movement 4 years ago has grown out to be a couple little wiggles in the trunk. When you wire, should you exaggerate the movement to account for the growth that is going to happen in trunk diameter? Biggest question is how to achieve more buds along the entire trunk without chopping my leader? Thanks!
 

biglou13

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http://bonsainut.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5547&highlight=back+budding

this thread should help

if you don't want to touch leader then chase back all growth except leader. sounds like you have enough trees to experiment with.

why dont you want to cutback leader? loose a little growth for decent trees in future or faster growth for bad trees in future.

cutting back this years growth (on healthy trees) has been the winning formula. for getting low bud breaks.
 

pwk5017

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Im 23, so I dont care too much about losing growth, but I want the results to be worth it. Just to experiment, I decandled 3 of the older ones. I have like 15 buds on all of them, but none lower than current needles. I will check out the thread, thanks.
 

pwk5017

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hahaha, biglou, that is MY thread. Idk, none of the posts provided decisive information on backbudding. Brent's information is solid, but when exactly should I prune in the fall? Should it be after deciduous trees have dropped their leaves and everything is entering dormancy, or before that while things are still active, but slowing down?
 

biglou13

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Wait till after deciduous drop then cut back all growth to last years growth.
Make sure your feeding them and they are super vigorous and healthy until then.
How and what are you feeding them now?

Prolly could wait until later to cut later just need enough sap flow to seal cuts. Cut a few weeks before they go to sleep.

How many are in ground?

Also after low breaks I trim everything at least 12 inches above to let light in. I also let darwin select which of the new buds break then end of season do some selective pruning.
 
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pwk5017

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None are in ground. Everything is in 100% inorganic mixes in varying containers. I feed double strength miracle gro every friday. The 3+ year olds also have a healthy amount of osmocote slow release all-purpose tomato feed, which I think is something like 10-10-10 or 14-14-14. They are pretty vigorous. I am excited to see the results of cutting back in the fall.
 

biglou13

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i moved away from 100% inorganic. watering demands to much and got better results with 2 parts turface 3 parts pine fines 1 part compost. all potted are in air pots/smart pots/rootmaker.

ground is still king. my potted jpb are at best 70% as big as ground so far. i'm excited to see results when i put some in ground after rootmaker for a few years.

whats your watering schedule/ish? any iron? sun exposure? any pics?
 

pwk5017

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Yes, I can agree with you on all the above. I have some pines that are in 75% perlite and turface with 25% pine bark. The watering demands arent too bad. I water everything in the morning, and the pines again in the evening. I just graduated from college in may, so that is why I dont have anything in the ground. Once I get some with the beginnings of a perfect nebari and low branches, I am probably going to throw them in the ground. Those will be for some larger trees. I am apprehensive to waste space in our family garden if the trees arent worthy of it. Almost forgot, the pines receive full morning sun, which becomes dappled around 11, then they are shaded/dappled sun until 1 at which time they receive full sun again. A nearby tree provides the odd sun schedule. I will take some pics today when I am out there.

Seeing that you grow in Florida, arent you afraid of nematode attacks on your pines in-ground? Also, how awesome is the growth you achieve down there?
 
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