JBP growing what to do

[jessepap]

Have had this pine growing for a few years now basically untouched and had been left alone. The truck has actually thickened a bit and isn’t too bad now.

Any views on where or how to start on this? Or just leave it to continue to grow for now?
There are lots of branches and the growth is fairly dense.

[Ryceman3]

Base is looking good, what you need now is a plan.
If you want a bigger tree, then let it thicken more, but you can’t let that thickening include leaving multiple branches coming from the same whorl… the only result from that is inverse taper and all your hard work is a bit wasted. Letting the central leader develop will give you girth through the entire trunk, so if a bigger tree is your end game, that works for now!
If you want a smaller tree, the same initial advice above applies, but you might look more at removing the central leader and lean towards using a side branch to carry you towards an apex. Smaller trees need more ramification closer to the trunk and lower down in general, so I would leave it to grow and apply diligent fertiliser over spring before a cut back in about 6 months which, provided you have a healthy and thriving tree, will result in back budding if you plan it well.
Hopefully that helps a bit…

[shibui]

Growth appears to be more dense than most JBP so I'm making a guess that this one is Yatsubusa or something like it. Any chance it is grafted? That's the usual method of propagating pine cultivars.
I believe that Yatsubusa means many buds in Japanese and this variety usually makes lots of buds at each growing pint in spring leading to shorter extension and dense growth. With standard JBP we need to concentrate on creating more shorter shoots to increase ramification and so branches don't get too long. With Yatsubusa more effort goes into reducing the number of buds so it doesn't get too congested.

Definitely keep an eye on whorls where more than 1 branch grows at the same level. Either remove all branches except 1 at each junction OR remove main trunk and all branches except 2. In that case one of the retained branches becomes the main trunk and the other is a branch. The key is only ever V forks sometimes called 2x2 pruning.

Most pines are not developed using the main trunk. That rarely has enough taper for good bonsai. In most cases, after some grow time to thicken the trunk, the main trunk is chopped and replaced by a thinner branch somewhere low on the trunk. Often pine development will be a series of such grow and chop cycles but whether to use that strategy depends on how much taper you want in the trunk.

[jessepap]

yes this is grafted and it is a Yatsubusa variety. the growth is very dense all the way up the tree.

makes sense re the trunk - this main trunk is basically straight up from the ground with no real movement. It sounds like it needs to be chopped back and a new leader selected at some stage. This is not something i will do on a whim.

thanks for the replies, i think i will let it grow for now as the tree feels like its out of my depth a bit.

[dmattar]

Which parts you leave on the tree for sacrificial growth would depend on your desired final size as the other posters have mentioned. Depending on what you are going for this could be the first or second set of branches you cut back to if you wanted a directional change and taper.

Even if you plan on growing the tree out, I would strongly consider needle plucking in late spring/early summer if the tree is very healthy. Leave the inside buds alone and try to needle pluck the outer canopy more aggressively to let light/air in. This will help you to keep the tree from shedding the shaded branches.

You will have enough time over the growing season to contemplate your options and decide which branches on the sacrificial growth to remove around autumn ish.

[shibui]

thanks for the replies, i think i will let it grow for now as the tree feels like its out of my depth a bit.

Need to be careful when letting pines grow. They are not like deciduous where we can just chop back and expect dormant buds to grow and give us new branches to work with.
Pines get longer each year of growth. Older needles will drop after around 3 years leaving that section bare. Bare sections are often very reluctant to back bud which means that pines left to grow usually end up with long, bare branches and tufts of foliage at the ends. Not impossible but quite difficult to make a good bonsai from that.

Dmattar has outlined a good strategy of removing needles from sacrifice branches to help preserve lower and inner shoots which you will need later.
Also consider strategic pruning of some or all of those lower branches to ensure they stay shorter with plenty of side shoots which may be useful when you work out what to do next. Pruning doesn't have to be yearly during development stage. Needles are viable for 3 years so pruning can be on a 2 or 3 year cycle during that growth stage.