grouper52
Masterpiece
I got this Austrian Black pine in the spring of 2008 at a nearby nursery where the owner grows all her own stuff off site from seeds and cuttings - no grafts, and no brushing or trimming of back buds off the lower trunk! The first photo shows it in the black plastic grow bag it came in, about 12 feet tall.
The next photo shows why I bought it. Besides the beautiful bark and base, which would not have been worth anything by themselves, the tree had a number of little back bud shoots down low! With those, I could do someting with this otherwise uninteresting "log in a pot".
I chopped it, and wired some gnarliness into those lower branches after those first two photos, and left it alone until late last fall, at which time I transfered it into a deep mica grow pot with good bonsai soil, and started trimming the branches a bit at that time. It has looked tempting all winter, and today I decided to take it the next step, with further branch trimming and wiring, and cleaned up the foliage a bit for the photo.
Much remains to be done in terms of the deadwood at the top and in other locations, as well as further selection, placement and refinement (especially needle shortening techniques) of the foliage areas, but still, the basic idea is now apparent. I'll post more as I work on it.
The next photo shows why I bought it. Besides the beautiful bark and base, which would not have been worth anything by themselves, the tree had a number of little back bud shoots down low! With those, I could do someting with this otherwise uninteresting "log in a pot".
I chopped it, and wired some gnarliness into those lower branches after those first two photos, and left it alone until late last fall, at which time I transfered it into a deep mica grow pot with good bonsai soil, and started trimming the branches a bit at that time. It has looked tempting all winter, and today I decided to take it the next step, with further branch trimming and wiring, and cleaned up the foliage a bit for the photo.
Much remains to be done in terms of the deadwood at the top and in other locations, as well as further selection, placement and refinement (especially needle shortening techniques) of the foliage areas, but still, the basic idea is now apparent. I'll post more as I work on it.