JBP Niwaki considerations

[badabing888]

Hi All,

I have a large JBP that's been trunk chopped that i intended to use as a landscape tree whats everyone's thought between using a trunk chopped pine then growing it out does it look unusual or does it blend if after a while?

unfortunately options are limited its either one's that are 5-6 meters tall and quite leggy or shorter trunk chopped pines...

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I'm just slowly getting all the elements together before next season doing a full redesign on this area with new fencing gates etc.

I'm 50/50 on pulling out this tallow and putting the JBP in its place on i replace the fencing. Or if i keep it in place with the Black pine kind of in the location its in.

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Comments ideas welcome. Court yard size is about 5 x 5 meters

[shibui]

Of course a trunk chop will blend in as the tree grows and thickens.
use bonsai techniques to help the transition - bend one branch up as a new leader then cut the trunk stump at an angle behind the new leader to give better transition and taper. In a few years as the new leader thickens and the chop heals over nobody will ever know.

There could be some issues with shading of the rear side of the pine close to the solid wall depending on which direction the wall is in relation to sun movement. Apart from planting the tree further away from the wall there's not much you can do except live with a niwaki that may have less density to the rear branches.
You would probably have twice the shading issues if you put the pine in the corner in place of the pistacio.

[damienw133]

dont worry too much about a trunk chop, It'll definitely heal over well given a few years! As a bonus you should get some more interesting movement in the trunk than you would have been able to achieve through wire alone....

I'd second Shibui's words about light being a bit of an issue for the rear branches of the pine, but aesthetically i dont think it should be too problematic (depending on exactly what you had in mind for it). An awful lot of the niwaki pines i saw in japan tended to be on the more leggy and gnarly side, so there's quite a bit of room for play as far as individual tree design goes.

I've included a couple of good examples of more open and sculptural black pines in Japan...i'm not sure exactly where the first one was, but the second is from one of the lane ways around daitokuji temple

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[badabing888]

Awesome thanks for that i had thought id likely just need to follow similar principles but i wasn't sure if trunk chopping as a done thing in niwaki and if it would "grow out"

Good point on the light situation the sun is going from left to right of screen so in the corner it would be shaded on the "pool fence" side
Near the limestone fence this would likely get some sun behind as that is north-> east the the other read might be ok late in the afternoon from the south west. I'd imagine in the corner the garage etc would totally shade it.

The two options im looking at are

trunk chopped with a leader

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or long and leggy but it is "thinner" about 3.5 meters.

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So if it was you what would you choose?

[BirchMan]

Hi Badabing. Where'd you find this in Perth? The way things are with seed I'd be keeping that in the ground and in a couple years starting seedlings year on year.

[shibui]

I think I would choose the thicker chopped one provided the branches are in reasonable locations. The thinner one is just a year or 2 and a trunk chop behind though so either should produce a good tree for you.

[badabing888]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice!!! That specific “thicker” one had gone as i took that photo 6 months ago.It’s a shame as that was near perfect to what i wanted.

I ended up getting both the thinner one a thicker one and one to play with although its a big leggy. I’ll take my time with them and figure it out.

@birchman PM me ill tell you as the owner has been a bit funny now and his told me he wont sell me any more black pines