Harry is right except for the bit about decandling at this time of year.... On trees you need to develop you should not worry too much about decandling it, other than selecting the candles you want to keep from those that need to go. You want to make sure you don't leave whorls of candles because it will cause swelling in that area with all of the growth activity, and it'll end up looking like a knob.
Unless of course you let an area grow radically to introduce more size to your tree by having a section you'll sacrifice later. Then let that area grow however it will, to take advantage of the thickening of the trunk by that radical growth.
But once you get your structure set... there are two ways to handle JBP... the traditional way, and the way some others of us do it. I'm not a student of the traditional way, so when Harry says it's too late... it's from the traditional perspective. But for myself, and others, all of our "candle work" happens in July to early August. So you'd be on the edge... but it's still doable for a little bit yet. Sometimes we don't finish them all until mid-August.
From that perspective you let all the candles extend their needles fully, then you complete remove them all, and if the tree is very strong, even back to all the old needles except for a pair or two at the base of last year's needles. Old needles on trees developing ramification are also often cut in half. The result is radical back budding with small very short needles.
You'd have to make sure you were only doing this kind of work on a very healthy and well fed tree though... sick trees or marginal ones would likely die from this treatment. So know your tree before attempting it.
Given that you have little experiance with JBP, I would suggest that you reduce the number of candles, down to one or two for any given branch. And then as you learn more about how your tree reacts, you can get more aggressive.
I generally don't get crazy with a tree until I have had it at least a year, or more frankly... unless I know full well what it's life has been like before it came into my hands. So caution is likely your friend in this....
Kindest regards,
Victrinia
