jpb candling help?

[damienw133]

Hi all, hopefully its not too stupid of a question, but i'm a bit confused about how to handle the elongating spring candles on a japanese black pine....

I'm growing a few as garden trees rather than bonsai, so needle length isnt a huge deal, but i'm in desperate need of more ramification.
Most of the candles on my trees are at this sort of stage at the moment. I was wondering, if i were to break the tips off them now, would i get a second flush of growth forming at the broken points, or would the new buds form at the base of the current candle?

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[shibui]

Breaking the candles in the middle will just stop them lengthening. Some buds may form at the base but more buds will grow from the needles, probably next spring.
If you already have long branches you can cut those back into older needles and expect new shoots to grow from the base of the needles left on the branch. Just need to be a little careful of apical dominance. If you prune weak lower branches but leave strong upper buds intact the low branches may not produce any buds. Best to prune upper shoots harder to get better budding on weaker low branches.

I usually wait until December to decandle black pines. I also do niwaki around the same time. I cut all candles off the entire tree. Any too long branches can be pruned back to useful older needles at the same time if required. Plenty of new buds will grow from the base of all pruned candles and from needles if you've pruned harder. Leave those to grow until late summer then select 2 good ones at each point and remove the rest just like we would do for a JBP bonsai. That seems to produce good results and will help promote more compact ramification.

[The Surgeon]

Hi Damien,

I stumbled across this youtube video only a couple of days ago. It may assist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JWRenbHNys

[shibui]

This one has more about reducing long branches.
It's a bit long with unwanted asides on building a pond and taking the kids to the beach but few actually cover cutting back to older needles so worth a look for that.
https://youtu.be/1Zk2ncE2Frg

[damienw133]

Thanks so much guys! I've been more or less winging it the last few years and dealing with the somewhat predictably uneven results so hopefully this will be the start of a more focused attack from here on out.

While we're sharing youtube vids, this one might be of interest to anyone else looking for info on niwaki, its not as technically informative as the Eastern Leaf ones, but its still got some good stuff i think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGDf5ijGuk&t=185s