FourMileMarc
Mame
I went down to Muranaka's down south in Nipomo CA the other day on the recommendation by Al and I must say I am very impressed. I usually drive up to Evergreen Garden Works once a year but this time I decided to try this place out. Each vendor has it's pluses and minuses but both are very well worth the drive. Muranaka really has it going on in the pine department although most of his stuff is in the ground. If you want it you have to time your visit in the early spring. He has a bunch of these 'Mikawa' BP's that he dug out this year and last in containers and top leaders cut off. I would say there were maybe 50-60 of them and VERY well priced between 50 and 80 bucks. So I went ballistic and bought 4 of them. The last one being very small so I did not take a picture of it.
I have a large collection of stuff in it's early stage of growing out and I really wanted some tree's that were close so I could get practice with refinement techniques on Black Pine. I figure #3 will be grown out to a larger tree. #2 is a informal upright with an interesting style of being kind of tall. This one will be refined as is although it looked a little on the week side to candle this year so I will pump it up and do it next summer. #3 looked healthy enough so I decided to attempt a full candle and needle pluck for my first time on an entire tree. The picture shows the final product. I re read a whole bunch on this and then went to it candling all but branch extension (one per branch on the end and the apex) and the weakest candles. I left more needles than most people do due to fear, but I am sure I will get over that someday. I did try to balance out the energy in the branches though.
With the 3rd tree I could not decide weather to remove branch 1 or branch 2 for the second branch I am leaning toward cutting 2 because of it's position and naked stalk. What does everyone think about that? The lower front branch will be removed in the winter (the one that says 'remove').
The nebari's on all of them are going to be spectacular and as the main selling point for me on these ones that I picked. However #2 nebari will need some work because it only looks good from 60 degrees of view. There is a big root that will need to be cut and new roots hopefully grown radially.
Also I have noticed over the last few years that when I cut the needles very close to the fascicle I get a bud every time. But when I pluck them I do not get a bud every time. Even though I am very careful to pluck one at a time strait out so as to not pull the fascicle. So where I thought would be a good place for an inside bud I cut and where I did not want new buds I plucked. Critiques are welcome on that one.
Thanks
I have a large collection of stuff in it's early stage of growing out and I really wanted some tree's that were close so I could get practice with refinement techniques on Black Pine. I figure #3 will be grown out to a larger tree. #2 is a informal upright with an interesting style of being kind of tall. This one will be refined as is although it looked a little on the week side to candle this year so I will pump it up and do it next summer. #3 looked healthy enough so I decided to attempt a full candle and needle pluck for my first time on an entire tree. The picture shows the final product. I re read a whole bunch on this and then went to it candling all but branch extension (one per branch on the end and the apex) and the weakest candles. I left more needles than most people do due to fear, but I am sure I will get over that someday. I did try to balance out the energy in the branches though.
With the 3rd tree I could not decide weather to remove branch 1 or branch 2 for the second branch I am leaning toward cutting 2 because of it's position and naked stalk. What does everyone think about that? The lower front branch will be removed in the winter (the one that says 'remove').
The nebari's on all of them are going to be spectacular and as the main selling point for me on these ones that I picked. However #2 nebari will need some work because it only looks good from 60 degrees of view. There is a big root that will need to be cut and new roots hopefully grown radially.
Also I have noticed over the last few years that when I cut the needles very close to the fascicle I get a bud every time. But when I pluck them I do not get a bud every time. Even though I am very careful to pluck one at a time strait out so as to not pull the fascicle. So where I thought would be a good place for an inside bud I cut and where I did not want new buds I plucked. Critiques are welcome on that one.
Thanks
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