Having difficulty wiring a pine.

[QuintinBonsai]

I purchased a large landscape Bosnian pine recently at a local nursery. It has a decent sized trunk, and it's not grafted.(yay!) I pulled it from it's pot to clean away the mass of dead needles around the trunk base. After selecting which branches I've decided to keep, I would like to wire them into position. This proving to be quite a challenge since most of all of the branches are covered with needles. I am concerned that wrapping the wire around the branches will damage it's needles. Is this okay to do? I have an informal upright style envisioned for it. I just don't want to pluck off too many needles, and end up hurting the tree.

 

[misfit11]

Now is the time for needle plucking pines anyway. It looks like your tree is healthy so you should be able to do this. Remove all of last years needles that are still present on the branches. Next, begin removing this years needles, leaving more pairs (I just googled Bosnian pine and it is a two-needle pine ) on lower branches (6 or 8). You can remove all but 3 or 4 pairs on the stronger branches towards the apex. This will clear out space on the branches for you to do your wiring. Fortunately, now is a good time for wiring, too!

Hopefully, Brian Van Fleet will chime in and confirm my advice since he is way more well versed with pine maintenance than I am. But this is what Kathy Shaner says to do, so...

BTW, your branch selection looks pretty good from as far as I can tell. However, it appears that there is a whorl of three branches towards the base. You definitely want to keep one of them as a first branch (or if for nothing else, as a sacrifice), but you don't want to keep them all. Eminating from the same place on the trunk will result in reverse taper. Keep the right hand branch.

Hope that helps.

Cory

 

[jkd2572]

Wait for Brian or smoke to chime in. I just got beat up a couple of weeks ago about how much of the interior needles I removed on some jpb stock I recently acquired.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

They can be difficult, take your time and do careful work.

1. Do not remove any more interior needles. These needle fascicles contain buds that should remain to create new buds later.
2. If you're wiring, remove the new growth (see photo) and wire old growth. This will cause new buds to break closer to the trunk.
3. Wire between the needle fascicles. Yes, it takes longer, but do not pin down needles.
4. If you remove needles, remove those that grow downward.
5. Keep needles on the interior.
6. Try to "balance" the quantity of needles, so each shoot has approximately the same number of needle pairs, so keep more toward the bottom, remove more toward the top.
7. Don't worry too much, because it will pop back very strongly in the spring. Pines require delicate work in the winter and summer, then they take a quantum leap forward.

 

[fore]

I thought fall time was the time to reduce older needles for incr. budding?

 

[misfit11]

They can be difficult, take your time and do careful work.

1. Do not remove any more interior needles. These needle fascicles contain buds that should remain to create new buds later.
2. If you're wiring, remove the new growth (see photo) and wire old growth. This will cause new buds to break closer to the trunk.
3. Wire between the needle fascicles. Yes, it takes longer, but do not pin down needles.
4. If you remove needles, remove those that grow downward.
5. Keep needles on the interior.
6. Try to "balance" the quantity of needles, so each shoot has approximately the same number of needle pairs, so keep more toward the bottom, remove more toward the top.
7. Don't worry too much, because it will pop back very strongly in the spring. Pines require delicate work in the winter and summer, then they take a quantum leap forward.

Thanks for contributing your expertise, BVF. The part about not removing needles that contain buds is definitely important for a beginner. It can be difficult to recognize those fascicles with immature buds.

 

[buddhamonk]

I thought fall time was the time to reduce older needles for incr. budding?

All depends on what stage of developement the tree is in and what you are trying to achieve. Back buddings vs maintaining shape vs growing the trunk...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7ngvzuN-F4

refer to one of the experts....

 

[QuintinBonsai]

Here is the tree now after some wiring. In picture 2, (the branch with my hand on it), I'm thinking this branch could be removed or jinned in the future. I'm still trying to understand the concept of a "sacrifice branch". Is this the lowest branch that should be kept to channel energy to fatten the base of the trunk? I included some other view points as well.



Btw I know this is probably a bit of useless info, but I've noticed that the resin from these pines cleans off your hands very easily compared to the JBP I have.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Check out this thread:
http://bonsainut.com/forums/showthread.php?9052-Black-pine-from-Telperion-farms

 

[aframe]

How is this pine doing? I'm looking into some great Bosnian stock, I've read they slow and steady growers. Can you post your experience with them so far?

Here is the tree now after some wiring. In picture 2, (the branch with my hand on it), I'm thinking this branch could be removed or jinned in the future. I'm still trying to understand the concept of a "sacrifice branch". Is this the lowest branch that should be kept to channel energy to fatten the base of the trunk? I included some other view points as well.

View attachment 28446View attachment 28447View attachment 28448View attachment 28449View attachment 28450

Btw I know this is probably a bit of useless info, but I've noticed that the resin from these pines cleans off your hands very easily compared to the JBP I have.