JBP - Aaron's Mikawa

[Eric Schrader]

This little tree has been around my yard for a while. My friend Aaron bought it in 2006 as a recently-chopped back young tree from John Thompson (jtbonsai, he's in the Midori club in San Jose). Aaron loved working on bonsai, but got too busy to keep up with it so he sold this tree to me in 2010. Here's a progression of photos showing the tree in various states or disarray.

Aaron working on the tree in 2007:

Marco Invernizzi, giving Aaron some pointers during that workshop:

In 2009 I had been growing the tree for Aaron for a year and wired it. It didn't grow well in his yard because he was in a very windy and foggy location in the city:

After that I had the tree with me in SoCal, but as with most of my smaller trees, I grew it under 30% shade cloth. The tree grew okay, but the shade cloth seemed to make the needles longer and skinnier. Here's the tree in January 2013, right after I moved back to SF:

I took the tree to a workshop with Daisaku Nomoto (Boon's co-apprentice to Kamiya) who was visiting. He's a big guy on shohin pines. He advised that I tilt the tree to the left, remove the lowest branch on the left and shorten the lowest branch on the right.

Here it is thinned out at that workshop a little. Unfortunately, I had to leave early so I never got a chance to finish wiring it at that workshop:

During the 2013 growing season the tree was not healthy, as many of my pines were not. I didn't decandle the entire tree, just the top section. There was a bad old cut near the top with an awkward branch that went right. I decided to remove it:

After wiring....the top looks terrible! But, I knew that this was the best course of action at the time because there were a bunch of small buds that could grow to create the top and I needed the existing branches to replace the larger ones that I had to remove:

For the June 2014 decandling, I was finally able to do it in two stages to balance the growth out, here after removing the weak candles:

And after removing all of them:

 

[Eric Schrader]

Finally!

The summer growth on this tree was even a bit more vigorous than I wanted, but it seems in the end like it will work out. Here are the buds in July:

November 2014, finally a good crop of needles! Man I love SF water and climate! Here before any needle pulling or thinning:

Old needles removed:

The base of the tree, two small scars, the larger is the branch removed in January 2013:

Healthy buds on the key branch:

After a full thinning and wiring:

Now I just need to get it potted at the right angle and I'll have my best shohin informal upright! (Well, actually, it might be slightly over 8 inches, but we'll see after the repotting is done)

Next year I'll be looking to allow the left branch to elongate slightly while shortening the right side more.

Cheers,

Eric

 

[Thomas J.]

Looks really good, congrats.

 

[tmmason10]

Nice progression and great tree!

 

[discusmike]

Love it! Wish it was mine

 

[discusmike]

Im sure its much happier in the larger pot.

 

[0soyoung]

Good stuff!

Thanks for this post and your others/blog.


I like how you walk me/us through the progression, but I wish I could get a bit more about why. For example, instead of just 'we decided to remove it', we decided to remove it because .... [just a few more words about why that became your choice].

Thanks again.

 

[Eric Schrader]

Good stuff!
I like how you walk me/us through the progression, but I wish I could get a bit more about why. For example, instead of just 'we decided to remove it', we decided to remove it because .... [just a few more words about why that became your choice].

Thanks again.

Well, in this case I can walk you through two things that may not be obvious:

First - Daisaku's advice. He said lean the tree to the left. Before we did this the trunk came out tilting slightly to the left, but the key branch was going right and the apex went left then sorta came back right a little. Leaning the tree to the left and shortening the right branch enhances the visual flow and dynamic qualities of the tree. Removing the lowest branch on the left at the same time allows us to pull down the next branch so that the angles in the branching are more consistent and the first branch is not too close to the pot.

Second - removing the ugly secondary apex. It was on the opposite side of a poorly-executed cut. This wasn't a difficult decision except that it left that side of the top of the tree with a bit of a hole in it. The cut could be left to the back where there is one other larger scar, both are not apparent from the front. I was able to wire down a branch and bend it forward slightly to fill the gap. That's actually the reason that the top was all flattened looking when I wired it last fall. You can sorta' see the branch that I bent down and over in this photo:

As for Discuss Mike's comment about the pot - It's true, a pot that's a bit oversized will allow you to develop the tree much more easily. Then, when it's time to show it you can put it in a smaller pot. Aaron had the tree in a pot that was too small not only for growing but too small visually in my opinion.

 

[Adair M]

It was a good year for JBP needles this year in San Francisco.

Congratulations for a great tree!

Daisuku is going to be styling one of my trees this winter. Really looking forward to it!

 

[mcpesq817]

Did Aaron ask for the tree back?

 

[barrosinc]

I hate opening Erics pine threads... arghhhhh
Actually I love them but hate myself! hahahah this is an extraordinary pine!

Love it.

 

[Eric Schrader]

Did Aaron ask for the tree back?

Sssshhhhhhh!!!!!! Don't tell him!

 

[Eric Group]

Beautiful little tree Eric!

 

[fraser67]

Inspiring! Thanks for taking the time to post the progression...very helpful

 

[trunghongmon]

Eric how I enjoyed working with your black pine, I just started with the black pine seeds from just a few years ago, hopefully next time I'll have your beautiful tree ! Thanks for your sharing!

THM

 

[JudyB]

Terrific post. Thanks for sharing your powerful little pine.

 

[Smoke]

Could you go into a little more detail on why the lengthen on the left and the shorten on the right?
Right now the proportion seems really good.

 

[Eric Schrader]

Could you go into a little more detail on why the lengthen on the left and the shorten on the right?
Right now the proportion seems really good.

You are correct that the proportions are good. The branches are all nice and short and have enough foliage to make the tree look full.

I'd like to see a little more directionality to the tree where it is gesturing to the left. The top flows well to the left and lengthening the low branch on the left will enhance the visual flow. It will be a small difference, but I think it will make the tree much better.

Here is the tree with foliage as-is but virtually planted at the new angle on the left and the tree with future foliage changes on the right. The low left branch on my preferred version is longer than the one above it and the two lowest branches on the right are shorter.

Cheers,

Eric

 

[Adair M]

On your virt, I'd like to see the "middle" right branch a bit shorter.

I like your vision for this tree!