decandling some pines

[Shibui]

I know many of you are settling in to hibernation for the winter but down under Summer has started. Smoke fills the air from bushfires in New South Wales and I'm watering twice a day to keep trees hydrated.
Mid December is also the time to cut candles on developed pines so I've spent a couple of afternoons snipping spring candles.
Some of my pines are still quite young, others a little older

Here are a few of them - before and after:

 

[eryk2kartman]

Looking good and healthy, good work! Enjoy the summer, out here is miserable, dark, cold and wet

 

[BunjaeKorea]

Great trees and stay safe

 

[Woocash]

And it seems to me, he lived his life decandling in the wind.....

Nice, I gots to get me some pines!

 

[bwaynef]

Are you going to be wiring them now?

 

[penumbra]

Excellent work. Enjoyed looking, thanks for posting. It is so awesome to know it is approaching summer somewhere.

 

[cmeg1]

Nice base on this .interesting

 

[Shibui]

Nice base on this .interesting

That one is quite old - 30 years or so I guess. One of the first black pines I purchased as 1 or 2 year old seedlings. As ;pines had a reputation for not liking too much root work or being bare rooted I was scared to untangle the roots then. What you see now are those original roots fused together into a solid woody plate. maybe not really attractive but possibly 'natural'
Black pines grow well and develop good shapes and branching with standard bonsai techniques so these looked quite good for a number of years. Unfortunately without appropriate management specific to pines they just continue to elongate. I soon ended up with great trunks but long branches with tufts of needles near the ends.
I spent another 10 years trying various techniques to get shoots growing closer to the trunk and along the branches. Now it is time again to start decandling and needle pulling to get some better ramification and smaller shoots of equal strength to make up branches.

These trees may never look pretty but the old bark on rugged trunks should at least divert some attention from the lack of detail in the branches.

 

[0soyoung]

Nice base on this .interesting

I agree. I'd be thinking of trying to make it the feature = any chance of lowering that low-right branch @Shibui ? If so, that would be the easiest way to focus attention toward the root plate. After that it would be checking if other foliage can be lowered to accomplish this and choosing a different front, which might not work either. Lastly there might be some fun arty things to do with it. Strangely, I'm noticing that literati forms tend to draw my attention tot the base of the tree (maybe this is a personal problem, I dunno).

At any rate, why should pancake(-ish) nebari be just a maple thing?

 

[Shibui]

With pines there is always the chance of changing a branch. These older branches are pretty stiff but I think that branch could still be coaxed a bit lower to fill the space.
You can see by the roots that I've already tilted the trunk as far as possible to the left to try to balance the trunk line.
One of the great things about bonsai is that the trees continue to grow and develop so design is (should) not be static but change as the tree grows and changes.

 

[cmeg1]

That one is quite old - 30 years or so I guess. One of the first black pines I purchased as 1 or 2 year old seedlings. As ;pines had a reputation for not liking too much root work or being bare rooted I was scared to untangle the roots then. What you see now are those original roots fused together into a solid woody plate. maybe not really attractive but possibly 'natural'
Black pines grow well and develop good shapes and branching with standard bonsai techniques so these looked quite good for a number of years. Unfortunately without appropriate management specific to pines they just continue to elongate. I soon ended up with great trunks but long branches with tufts of needles near the ends.
I spent another 10 years trying various techniques to get shoots growing closer to the trunk and along the branches. Now it is time again to start decandling and needle pulling to get some better ramification and smaller shoots of equal strength to make up branches.

These trees may never look pretty but the old bark on rugged trunks should at least divert some attention from the lack of detail in the branches.

great story really.I like the Jin.
Very long time.Your a Bonsai Master in my book

 

[M. Frary]

I know many of you are settling in to hibernation for the winter but down under Summer has started. Smoke fills the air from bushfires in New South Wales and I'm watering twice a day to keep trees hydrated.
Mid December is also the time to cut candles on developed pines so I've spent a couple of afternoons snipping spring candles.
Some of my pines are still quite young, others a little older

Here are a few of them - before and after:
View attachment 274195View attachment 274196

View attachment 274197View attachment 274198
View attachment 274199View attachment 274200
View attachment 274201View attachment 274202
View attachment 274203View attachment 274204

I don't see any candles in any of the pictures.
What I see are trees with grown shoots then trees with the shoots cut off.

 

[sorce]

I don't see any candles in any of the pictures.
What I see are trees with grown shoots then trees with the shoots cut off.

I was thinking it is quite more than 100 days till the last frost......?

Seems early.

Dope trees though.

Sorce

 

[M. Frary]

I was thinking it is quite more than 100 days till the last frost.

That crap is for JBP people.
There is never 100 days between frosts where I live.

 

[Shibui]

I suppose that's why the candles have well opened by the time it is time to cut over here. I'd expect frost some time in May or June. Regardless of what you want to call them pruning this time of year gives a good response with plenty of smaller new shoots.

I saved a couple for today.
this one is a Japanese red pine root over rock. developing nice dense branching now.


As I was about to start cutting a wren was getting agitated

Soon joined by her mate


Then I discovered the reason


They had followed the tree from the growing area over to my work area and were still feeding the chicks in the nest.
After cutting all the shoots I put it back where it came from so the birds could get on with raising their family.



last to be done is another JBP. Another of of those older, ill cared for pines that had developed long, bare branches.
A combination of grafting new shoots, a few back buds and restyle to make some use of the longer branches and a couple of years of better care and this one is also starting to look OK. No birds in this one.

 

[Shibui]

It is now autumn and weather is cooling down so it is time to reduce the new shoots and needles on black and red pines.
Here's the tall black pine before thinning. Lots of nice short new shoots after early summer candle pruning but there's way too many and some clusters where too many are growing from the same place.


For those who haven't ventured into pines yet this is what we get after cutting candles in summer.

There are 5 shoots all growing around the base of a summer pruned shoot. That's way too many. If I leave all of them that area will thicken too much and leave an ugly lump. Those shoots will also block the light from reaching other branches and will make that branch too strong. Remove all except 2.

I usually try to leave 2 on the sides so the branch spreads out sideways but it is more important to manage vigour. This is a strong growing branch so I've cut the strongest shoots and left a couple of the smaller ones. In weaker areas of the tree I'd cut of the weakest and leave a couple of stronger ones. In this way I gradually equalise strength all over the tree.
While I'm pruning I also pull off all the older needles. They are not needed now that the tree has new ones. Removing the older needles also allows sun to get to the weaker shoots inside and on lower branches to make those grow and bud a little better. Wherever there are stronger new shoots with lots of new needles I also remove some of those excess new needles, again, to help all the shoots attain equal strength.

After all that a couple of the branches needed some adjustment so I wired and realigned a couple.
The left branch is still a bit straight which conflicts a little with the trunk. I'll make some more adjustments to it and try to separate the smaller branches there into a couple of distinct pads.



Happy to hear any constructive comments.

 

[Adair M]

Good start on the wiring. The whole tree needs wiring.

 

[Shibui]

Good start on the wiring. The whole tree needs wiring.

It does but there is only so much wiring I can do at a single sitting! I have all winter to do more.

 

[Adair M]

Ah. I see. It looks like you put on a little bit here, and a little bit there...

May I suggest a different approach?

Start at the bottom and wire the whole bottom branch out. Like it’s supposed to be. Then do the next highest one. And then the next highest. And on. The apex is last.

This systematic method works for me. And keeps me from skipping stuff and telling myself “I’ll do that part later”. Which never happens.

I say all this because right now, as it stands, the tree is a sloppy mess. Now, I understand “work-in-progress”, but you didn’t state that you were going to finish the wiring later in your post. If you had completed one branch, then said the rest will be done later... that’s different.

It looks like you have some nice trees, you just need to complete one project before going in to the next!

(You DID ask for constructive criticism.)

 

[Shibui]

All absolutely correct.
Completing one project before moving on would be far more effective - probably. maybe one day it will actually happen here.

Here's another sloppy mess I made before getting back to that original one.
Red pin this time.



Eventually I got back to the JBP as suggested and did some more wiring and placement. Maybe not quite as proficient as it could be but getting little closer toward passable I hope.



Apex areas of pines still confounding me. Any suggestions for the apex of either or both?