Hi Brian, is that the same pine you used in your slideshow (which is incredibly instructive by the way, thanks for sharing it)? You've made some really nice progress and have a great tree there.
JBP Fall Work
- Thread starter Thomas J.
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Hi Brian, is that the same pine you used in your slideshow (which is incredibly instructive by the way, thanks for sharing it)? You've made some really nice progress and have a great tree there.
Brian Van Fleet
Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Thanks! It is the same tree; it has been rewarding to document the progress over the last 3 years, and learn a little along the way. The presentation is updated, and much easier to access at:
http://www.nebaribonsai.com/Nebari_Bonsai_112109/Projects_files/Candle-Cutting 1109.pdf
Although it is up to a 20 MB file...hopefully I will have some time to reduce the file size over Christmas.
ghues
Omono
Brian, that's an exceptional post as the photos and details allows us rockies to follow it to the letter (adjusting the timetable slightly for our areas climate).
Just one question, I noticed that you must have repotted the tree in the spring of 08 as it was still in the nursery container in Sept 07. You must have felt that it was strong enough to do both treatments (repot and styling/needle plucking) all in one year. Is this the standard you use?...as I was under the impression that you would have allowed the tree to settle into its pot the first season after repotting.
Cheers Graham
Just one question, I noticed that you must have repotted the tree in the spring of 08 as it was still in the nursery container in Sept 07. You must have felt that it was strong enough to do both treatments (repot and styling/needle plucking) all in one year. Is this the standard you use?...as I was under the impression that you would have allowed the tree to settle into its pot the first season after repotting.
Cheers Graham
Brian Van Fleet
Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Thanks, glad it is helpful...love the pines!
The tree is a young nursery tree, and I styled it initially in 3/07, so it had a full growing season to "recover" before I potted it into it's first bonsai container in 3/08. The current pot is way too big to be a final pot, so it was really an intermediate step in the process; and it gave me a chance to change out some of the compacted soil for something more pourous. In 2007, I started on a 5-year plan to space the work out for the health of the tree, and decided to document it. Most of the work is done so far apart, that it's easy to forget where you are in the process:
'07: Initial Styling, no root work
'08: First bonsai pot
'09: Ramification, nebari work (not repotting, just working on the surface roots I can get to)
'10: Ramification, graft shoots into three branches that are in the right place, but with foliage too far from trunk.
'11: Ramification of new grafted shoots, shorten some sacrifice brances, rework the apex
'12: Repot into smaller bonsai pot
Candle-cutting isn't necessarily stressful for the tree, in fact, you don't candle-cut until the current season's growth is fully open, and contributing to the strength of the tree, so it's pretty strong by the time you cut candles in July. Had I not candle-cut last year, the results would have been coarse growth, long needles, and long internodes, so it would have hurt the efforts in 2007, and forced more drastic pruning in spring/summer '09.
Likewise for needle pulling; it's far better to allow light into the tree than to allow old needles with a diminished capacity to stay on the tree. I only leave last year's needles in places where I am hoping for a bud to appear next year...reducing the need for grafting, because I am horrible at it...so far!
Way-too-long answer to a short question, but hopefully it makes sense.
Thanks,
Brian
The tree is a young nursery tree, and I styled it initially in 3/07, so it had a full growing season to "recover" before I potted it into it's first bonsai container in 3/08. The current pot is way too big to be a final pot, so it was really an intermediate step in the process; and it gave me a chance to change out some of the compacted soil for something more pourous. In 2007, I started on a 5-year plan to space the work out for the health of the tree, and decided to document it. Most of the work is done so far apart, that it's easy to forget where you are in the process:
'07: Initial Styling, no root work
'08: First bonsai pot
'09: Ramification, nebari work (not repotting, just working on the surface roots I can get to)
'10: Ramification, graft shoots into three branches that are in the right place, but with foliage too far from trunk.
'11: Ramification of new grafted shoots, shorten some sacrifice brances, rework the apex
'12: Repot into smaller bonsai pot
Candle-cutting isn't necessarily stressful for the tree, in fact, you don't candle-cut until the current season's growth is fully open, and contributing to the strength of the tree, so it's pretty strong by the time you cut candles in July. Had I not candle-cut last year, the results would have been coarse growth, long needles, and long internodes, so it would have hurt the efforts in 2007, and forced more drastic pruning in spring/summer '09.
Likewise for needle pulling; it's far better to allow light into the tree than to allow old needles with a diminished capacity to stay on the tree. I only leave last year's needles in places where I am hoping for a bud to appear next year...reducing the need for grafting, because I am horrible at it...so far!
Way-too-long answer to a short question, but hopefully it makes sense.
Thanks,
Brian
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