Three Crows
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I have a basic question about pine growth and pruning that i think applies to bonsai and niwaki. I have a 20 year old Scot's pine that i rescued from a garden store. It is now about 6 feet tall. I bought it at a good price to reshape it into a cloud-pruned feature in my Japanese-style garden. It was machine pruned into a pom pom style. I pruned the pom poms to be reasonable looking pads. To shape what's left of the pom poms into pads, as each new spring's growth emerges as a candle i manually break off about 2/3 to 3/4 of the new growth. The candle hardens off as a branch and continues to grow, producing another candle next spring. Over time, 5 to 10 years, won't this candle become a branch that is just a long ugly, twig with needles only on the end resembling a brush? If this is the case then how do we keep the pad of green needles close to the tree and not be on long twigs grown away from the tree's centre? i can only surmise that other "new" candles will emerge and i will encourage them to grow while gradually removing the long brushy twigs. Does this make sense? I can provide a drawing if it will help. -Geoff-