Mikawa Japanese black pine

[aml1014]

Hey everybody, so next month is my birthday so I decided to buy myself an early birthday present.
I got a Mikawa Japanese black pine from my man @Stickroot. He's been training it for 11 years and now it's NY turn to continue the development of this tree.
As usual Adam packaged the tree wonderfully but unfortunately fed ex was pretty brutal on this thing. It arrived depotted with soil everywhere! Based off of my inspection while potting the tree up, it looked as if the root tips where healthy and completely undamaged. So my feeling is that it was tossed around being put into the delivery truck today.
I got the tree potted up and watered in, and set it in an area that is completely under shade cloth to recover. It should pull through fine.
The tree is 16" tall with a trunk just over 1"
So without further ado here it is.
Very nice movement and root spread.
It is a beautiful tree with lots of branching, I'm very excited to work on it.
I'll give it about 6 weeks to recover from its shipping ordeal and if it's doing well I'll get to work.
This tree has been allowed to grow freely for 2 years and is very healthy, I'd like to needle pluck, wire the tree out, and do branch/bud selection. Next summer I will decandle the tree to start workin in refining it again.
This is my nicest JBP by far now and am very excited.
Thanks again Adam.
And thanks for looking everyone!

Aaron

 

[Adair M]

Bury those roots deeper.

 

[aml1014]

Bury those roots deeper.

I will at the next repot, right now all that matters is that I have the feeder roots in some soil. Real repot to come next spring.
Any other advice you may have? your my go to man with jbp for sure lol
Aaron

 

[Adair M]

Yeah, if you can put more soil on top, do so. Raise the rim of the pot somehow. Those aren't the kind of roots you want to expose as "exposed roots".

Something like these are:

 

[aml1014]

Yeah, if you can put more soil on top, do so. Raise the rim of the pot somehow. Those aren't the kind of roots you want to expose as "exposed roots".

Something like these are:

View attachment 116993

I wasn't planing for this to be an exposed root at all during the next repot the tree will be lowered for sure, this thing just was at a weird angle when I got it because fed ex was careless so I got it pointing upright and new soil in the pot. I did mound some soil over those roots for now though. This is about the depth and angle it'll be planted at next spring.

What do you think?
Aaron

 

[Adair M]

Sure. Get some of the cross stitch mesh that we use to cut the screens for pot holes. Use strips of that to raise the outside rims of the pot so you can put in an inch of soil yo cover the roots.

Next spring you can do a half bare root repot.

 

[Stickroot]

I wasn't planing for this to be an exposed root at all during the next repot the tree will be lowered for sure, this thing just was at a weird angle when I got it because fed ex was careless so I got it pointing upright and new soil in the pot. I did mound some soil over those roots for now though. This is about the depth and angle it'll be planted at next spring.
View attachment 116999
What do you think?
Aaron

This is good for now. Just keep those roots covered.

 

[LanceMac10]

I look at it and want to tilt it a bit more to view left. Then come counter-clockwise just a few degrees. And then a smidge tilted towards the viewer.

But enough of that. Gotta' be massive junkyards by you. Skip on in, ask "WHERE DA' WHITE TRAILERS AT!!" Then cut the screen outta' the door and/or window, roll it up, down the trousers, and skip on out.

Cool as a cucumber! Helps if ya' got a smoothie in your mouth! Most times, nobody hassles a full-on vagrant! If you know what I mean!

Keep that soil in there.

 

[aml1014]

This tree didn't even stress about the shipping issue, so today I went ahead and needle plucked and wired most branches.
Still a big ball of needles, but it should look great this time next year after decandling in summer and doing what I did here again next fall.
This is the first time I've ever done fine wiring on a pine I got better as I went up, but let me know how I did, aah hmm @Adair M .

Thanks
Aaron

 

[Adair M]

This tree didn't even stress about the shipping issue, so today I went ahead and needle plucked and wired most branches.View attachment 117967
Still a big ball of needles, but it should look great this time next year after decandling in summer and doing what I did here again next fall.
This is the first time I've ever done fine wiring on a pine I got better as I went up, but let me know how I did, aah hmm @Adair M .

Thanks
Aaron

It's difficult to see much, but I don't see anything to complain about! You didn't wrap any needles under the wire! That's good!

Looking at it, it appears to be much more dense on the left than the right. Are there more branches on that side? Or, did you not pull as many needles from that side?

Or, which is most likely, the tree was naturally stronger on that side. So, the idea is we want the tree to be "balanced". So, if the left side is noticeably strong let than the right, you should pull done more needles from the strong side to give it the sane apparent fullness as the weaker side. That would make it "balanced".

Now, let's also apply done common sense here. A perfectly balanced tree is our long term goal, but it's also one of those things that takes several years to achieve. So, thin some more needles from the strong side, but maybe don't match the weak side. At least not this year. Maybe you can next year. Or the year after.

 

[aml1014]

It's difficult to see much, but I don't see anything to complain about! You didn't wrap any needles under the wire! That's good!

Looking at it, it appears to be much more dense on the left than the right. Are there more branches on that side? Or, did you not pull as many needles from that side?

Or, which is most likely, the tree was naturally stronger on that side. So, the idea is we want the tree to be "balanced". So, if the left side is noticeably strong let than the right, you should pull done more needles from the strong side to give it the sane apparent fullness as the weaker side. That would make it "balanced".

Now, let's also apply done common sense here. A perfectly balanced tree is our long term goal, but it's also one of those things that takes several years to achieve. So, thin some more needles from the strong side, but maybe don't match the weak side. At least not this year. Maybe you can next year. Or the year after.

I needle plucked every branch down to the weakest significant branch as Ryan Neil recommends, in this case its around 20 pairs of needles on every branch except for the very weak ones. That left side does have more branch ramification and does make it appear more dense, hopefully after decandling next summer this thing should look pretty tighty.
I also really tried hard to do the fishhook you taught me so that the needles would not be dropping downward. Overall I'm happy that it's cleaned up

Thanks
Aaron

 

[Adair M]

There's more to needle pulling and balancing than that. Altough that's a good start!

It gets pretty OCD! Up top, where the tree is stronger, leave 6 to 8 pairs. Middle section, leave a dozen pairs. Weak areas leave 15 to 18 pairs. Very weak areas, leave everything.

When the tree gets more ramified, so that there are more tips, then reduce the number of pairs kept.

You're probably OK for now. If next year the left side still looks fuller, then some thinning might be called for.

Hey! Glad you tried the hooks! Works pretty well, doesn't it?

 

[aml1014]

There's more to needle pulling and balancing than that. Altough that's a good start!

It gets pretty OCD! Up top, where the tree is stronger, leave 6 to 8 pairs. Middle section, leave a dozen pairs. Weak areas leave 15 to 18 pairs. Very weak areas, leave everything.

When the tree gets more ramified, so that there are more tips, then reduce the number of pairs kept.

You're probably OK for now. If next year the left side still looks fuller, then some thinning might be called for.

Hey! Glad you tried the hooks! Works pretty well, doesn't it?

It really does work well! OCD, now thats my kind of tree lol
Just to double check that I did it properly, here's a picture of a branch with the fish hook that I was doing.
As always, thank you for all your help @Adair M ! If I could come out to Georgia to train with you, I would!

Aaron

 

[Adair M]

That's pretty good! You could probably cut off that last 1/4 inch, but no big deal.

Rather than train with me, you should train with Boon! He's closer to where you are! And better at it than I am!

 

[aml1014]

Rather than train with me, you should train with Boon! He's closer to where you are! And better at it than I am!

It's unfortunate that I can't do either, I'm a poor kid lol

Aaron

 

[aml1014]

Repotted today, the soil is still slightly mounded but I'll reduce the roots a bit more at the next repot in a couple years, there was a ton of mycooriza in the soil of another jbp I repotted today as well so I through some into the mix on this guy.
The mycooriza on the other trees rootball.
Aaron

 

[Adair M]

That's better. But I bet you could have taken a little more off the bottom. Have you seen the video of me demonstrating repotting?

I posted a thread in the Pines section of the forum.

On Boon webpage, he sell DVDs of his techniques. He now has them available for streaming over the Internet. You can buy or rent them. They're the next best thing to attending one of his Intensives.

 

[aml1014]

That's better. But I bet you could have taken a little more off the bottom. Have you seen the video of me demonstrating repotting?

I posted a thread in the Pines section of the forum.

I realize that, but after its problem with shipping, I just wanted to get it at the right angle with my soil. I did bare root the left side and will do the other side at the next repot. I'll take more off the bottom then. Thanks for the reply.
I actually haven't seen your video yet, I'll look for it.

Aaron