Black Pine

[sokonmatsumura]

I have zero experience with working with Black Pine. I got an eight year old Banshosho Black Pine. At the moment it has pretty long needles on it. Any advice on how to shorten them up? Can you cut the needles manually, what would happen if you cut them all to a desirable sizes?

 

[Ang3lfir3]

Can you cut the needles manually, what would happen if you cut them all to a desirable sizes?

yes you can cut them .... this is actually part of our development program at Elandan ..... in doing so you reduce the amount of photosynthetic energy the tree can produce.... resulting in smaller candles and weaker overall growing ability .... however this also opens the inner areas of the branches and can help induce back budding .. similar but not exactly like needle pulling (needle pulling is more effective when done properly) ..... the ends of the needle will turn brown and not look pleasing.... that is why its a development technique

think of it as being similar to cutting deciduous leaves in half ....

 

[sokonmatsumura]

If you cut them and they turn brown will it ever look normal again? How do people get these beautiful black pine specimens with the perfect sized needles?

 

[Ang3lfir3]

the needles that turn brown will fall of after 3yrs once they no longer are supporting the tree... (pine needles are dropped by the tree over time as they tend to "wear out" )

the short needles come from ramification....

think of the pot (full of roots) as a volume of energy.... that energy is sent out through the tree to create new needles.... evenly dispersed (after we balance energy) ... with more exits you see smaller grow as less energy goes to each place.... thus short needles

that's a really simplified idea of how ramification produces reduction.... but it should help clear up the base principles of the idea

 

[Adair M]

I used to cut my JBP needles, but don't anymore. There are better ways.

What stage is your JBP in? Is is raw stock? In refinement? Nearing "Finished"?

If still raw stock, don't worry about needle length. You're still growing structure.

If in refinement or finished, shorter needles will occur naturally as you manage candles.

In spring, allow the candles to extend. In mid summer, de-candle. This means you cut all the new growth that grew this past spring. At the top of the tree, you cut the candles off just below the first new needles. Mid-tree, you cut the candles midway between the new needles for this year, and last year's needles. Bottom of tree, cut the candles off (straight across) right where the new candle emerges from last year's wood.

This will cause the tree to send out "adventitious" buds that are dormant, right at the base of the candle. Where you once had one candle,you will now have 3 to 5 after about 2 to 3 weeks. These new candles will have shorter "necks" (which means shorter internodes) and since the growing season is much shorter, the needles will harden off and be shorter. The later in the growing season you decandle, the shorter the needles will be.

Why leave stubs at the top? And less mid tree, and none in the bottom? To balance the tree. JBP want to grow at the top. The presence of a living candle produces a hormone that suppresses the "adventitious" buds. Leaving a stub fools the tree for a little while, and the adventitious buds at the top of the tree are suppressed for a little while. This gives the buds in the lower part of the tree more energy. No candle there, so the tree tries to create some with the adventitious buds. The tree is weaker in the bottom, so this technique forces the tree to devote more energy there. Leaving a short stub mid-tree suppresses adventious buds some, but not as much as a long stub.

Later in the fall, once the adventitious buds have developed, you thin back to two. It's also a good time to remove ALL the previous year's needles, leaving only those needles that grew in after the de-candling.

The only exceptions to the above are "needle buds". Sometimes, you get bud on old wood, or between pairs of needles. These buds are very weak, but they're great to have. If you get those, DON'T decandle them for a season or two. They're just too weak. But they will eventually strengthen and become regular branches. These are great, they allow you to periodicly shorten your branches back, so your tree does not get "leggy". Since you didn't decandle them, when you pluck the other old needles, these needles on Needle buds may be twice as long as your other needles. If you want, you can cut these so they appear to be uniform with the others.

This is a lot to digest, I know. And it's ONLY for JBP. Do NOT attempt with JWP. It will kill JWP.

 

[sokonmatsumura]

My new black pine.

It is an eight year old stock pine. I am kind of at a loss as to what to do. I have been trying to wire it to give it a different shape, as in not like charlie browns christmas tree.

 

[fh05]

Sorry for such a short reply, I am kinda in a hurry bu t Please remove all the wire asap. I am sure the reasons to do so will follow.

 

[Adair M]

Ok, a stock tree. None of the advice I gave above applies.

First of all, remove the wire you have applied. Leaving it on will harm your tree. I admire your enthusiasm, let's direct it positively.

Wiring is an art. When applying wire, believe it or not you direct the wire BETWEEN the needles if you are wiring a branch that has needles. Yes, it's a pain. And tedious. This is why wiring pines is most often performed in the fall, after pulling old needles, it's easier. So, by bundling up the needles with wire, you are depriving those needles access to sunlight, and even more importantly, the bud in the interior. This, all by itself, may kill your tree. Remove the wire today.

Now, why do we wire? It is applied so that we can bend the branch to grow in the direction we desire. Your trunk appears to be about the thinkness of a finger. To put a bend in that is going to require a substantial sized wire. Lots of little wires have no holding power. You need to get some anealed copper wire, if you are going to style pines. Aluminum wire is just too soft. And it stays soft, so the branch (or trunk) may not stay positioned. Copper wire, once bent tends to stay bent. It kind of "crystalizes" which makes it hard. Annealing (heating it until it glows) releases the crystals, then bending creates them. So buy annealed copper wire, of all thicknesses. Use a wire that is about 1/3 the thickness of the branch you are trying to bend.

Finally, and this is really the best thing you could do, find a local bonsai club where they have meetings or workshops and have someone show you how to apply the wire properly. I said it is an art, and it is, it is also "science". There are techniques that work well. If you are going to be applying expensive copper wire, you want it to work.

Boon has excellent wiring instructional DVDs for sale on his site: bonsaiboon.com

 

[JudyB]

Adair, thank you for taking the time to post such a understandable JBP program and the reasons for applying those principals. It can be confusing for people new to pines, it's taken me a few years to get the hang of the what/why, and your post is pretty easy to digest.

 

[Mojosan]

First of all, remove the wire you have applied. Leaving it on will harm your tree.


Please elaborate...............

 

[iant]

Wow that's quite a wiring photo! This was an April 1st post.... hmmmmmm......Very nice of Adair to give such nice detailed advice.
Ian

 

[rockm]

"First of all, remove the wire you have applied. Leaving it on will harm your tree."


'Please elaborate............... '

If you look closely at the photo, you will see that the wire has been applied OVER the needles, collecting them in tight bundles. This treatment, as Adair said, can kill the tree by essentially shading and crowding the needles.

Applying wire along the branches and not over the needles is how pines are wired.

 

[Mojosan]

I better go get some coffee, I didn't even see the photo! Thanks rock.

 

[sokonmatsumura]

My instincts told me that I probably shouldn't bundle the needles like that, but I figured it would only be a little while. I will remove them and do them between the needles. Other bonsais I have done I just shaped existing plants to look like trees, I haven't wired yet as you can tell. I will repost after I fix it. Thank you for your guidance.

 

[Kiani]

I used to cut my JBP needles, but don't anymore. There are better ways.

What stage is your JBP in? Is is raw stock? In refinement? Nearing "Finished"?

If still raw stock, don't worry about needle length. You're still growing structure.

If in refinement or finished, shorter needles will occur naturally as you manage candles.

In spring, allow the candles to extend. In mid summer, de-candle. This means you cut all the new growth that grew this past spring. At the top of the tree, you cut the candles off just below the first new needles. Mid-tree, you cut the candles midway between the new needles for this year, and last year's needles. Bottom of tree, cut the candles off (straight across) right where the new candle emerges from last year's wood.

This will cause the tree to send out "adventitious" buds that are dormant, right at the base of the candle. Where you once had one candle,you will now have 3 to 5 after about 2 to 3 weeks. These new candles will have shorter "necks" (which means shorter internodes) and since the growing season is much shorter, the needles will harden off and be shorter. The later in the growing season you decandle, the shorter the needles will be.

Why leave stubs at the top? And less mid tree, and none in the bottom? To balance the tree. JBP want to grow at the top. The presence of a living candle produces a hormone that suppresses the "adventitious" buds. Leaving a stub fools the tree for a little while, and the adventitious buds at the top of the tree are suppressed for a little while. This gives the buds in the lower part of the tree more energy. No candle there, so the tree tries to create some with the adventitious buds. The tree is weaker in the bottom, so this technique forces the tree to devote more energy there. Leaving a short stub mid-tree suppresses adventious buds some, but not as much as a long stub.

Later in the fall, once the adventitious buds have developed, you thin back to two. It's also a good time to remove ALL the previous year's needles, leaving only those needles that grew in after the de-candling.

The only exceptions to the above are "needle buds". Sometimes, you get bud on old wood, or between pairs of needles. These buds are very weak, but they're great to have. If you get those, DON'T decandle them for a season or two. They're just too weak. But they will eventually strengthen and become regular branches. These are great, they allow you to periodicly shorten your branches back, so your tree does not get "leggy". Since you didn't decandle them, when you pluck the other old needles, these needles on Needle buds may be twice as long as your other needles. If you want, you can cut these so they appear to be uniform with the others.

This is a lot to digest, I know. And it's ONLY for JBP. Do NOT attempt with JWP. It will kill JWP.

I am about to buy my first JBP and just wanted to say thank you for providing some very useful info.

 

[sokonmatsumura]

Anybody have any good links to pictures or video showing a Black pine bonsai from the ground up? Start to finish? Also with the copper wire, do you wrap it on the trunk and then heat it up?

 

[fore]

Anybody have any good links to pictures or video showing a Black pine bonsai from the ground up? Start to finish? Also with the copper wire, do you wrap it on the trunk and then heat it up?

Brian Van Fleet has a really great blog, with photo''s on a JBP progression from a really nice nursery grown JBP to a beautiful tree, in 4 yrs no less.
http://www.nebaribonsai.com/Nebari_Bonsai_112109/Projects_files/Candle-Cutting 071011.pdf

 

[sokonmatsumura]

I took off my heinous wire job. Here are some photos. Any advice as to where to start?

 

[Harunobu]

There are important techniques to make pines grow shorter needles and more juvinile growth and to get nice sylised 'foliage pads'. But the tree in your picture has a long way to go.

I think one should focus on a certain characteristic that will make your bonsai be a good bonsai. A trunk with interesting curves and balanced branch placement is one thing. A tapering trunk with strong nebari is another one. Age is something that comes with age. Then a lot other characteristics are technique and skill of the bonsai artist. Especially so with pines.

The tree you have has a straight trunk. To me this means it becomes more important to get a fat tapering trunk. The main way to get a fat tapering trunk is to have low sacrificial branches and grow them as big as needed. Your pine has it's first branch almost halfway up the trunk.
A problem with pines is always to get backbudding on old wood so it may be impossible to grow new branches that can then be sacrificial.

I think this video is quite good. There are some videos made on Japanese nurseries but I find their techniques are a bit too advanced to show to someone just trying to wrap their mind around it.

Let me say this. It is good to aim for a design where in the final design the trunk thickness below the first branch is 1/6th the height of the tree in diameter.
This means you need at least one or maybe 2 or more sacrificial branches below your first final design branch. Also, the first branch is often at 1/3rd the height of the tree.

So say the diameter of the trunk will be 8cm. Then the height of the bonsai will be 48 cm. Then the first branch will be at 16 cm. Then that means you need at least one branch below 16 cm from the roots and one at around 16 cm from the roots. Now the roots are generally a bit below the soil line.

Generally because pines are so apically dominant, they will never ever grow all these branches you need to fatten up the trunk at the right point without them receiving some pruning at the right age.

I am no expert in what you can still do with this pine. It seems you can still get some movement in the upper half of the trunk. I would normally think it would be a good idea to grow out the lowest branch as a sacrificial branch while pruning the candidates for final design branches at the right time to make them more 'branchy' rather than just long branches that in the future will be bald with only some foliage at the tip.
But in this case I don't see how you can get rid of the lowest branch. Will make for a really strange look.

Also, is it grafted? It looks a bit odd at the base.

[edit]
Oh it is a cultivar and Angelfire said he is sure. Well, indeed imagine if you grew this trunk really fat over a period of 15 years or more, then you cut the lowest branch and the apex and create a new tree from a branch. Then it still isn't going to be great after all that effort. Any tree that is really old will have character. But it is really hard to compensate for the flaws this pine already has. Pines are not beginner friendly indeed.

Still this tree may learn you a lot about how pines grow.


Wire is coiled tightly around branches. When the wire is of sufficient thickness, you can bend the branches in place and the rigidity of the wire will keep them there.

 

[Ang3lfir3]

Any advice as to where to start?

<jerFace>
this tree is grafted.... you will have a hard time making a credible bonsai from it ..... you should consider finding better material... and joining a club ...

also ... don't start with pines.... pines != beginner friendly ..... plant this tree in your yard and in 10yrs we can talk about it...
</jerkFace>