Black Pine. What to do?

[nick-laing]

Hi All,

I purchased this black pine from a local club show and sale day last year.

Since then It has been living in this grow box I built. It was decandled last year and has thrown quite a few buds.

I am unsure what to do with it now however. Is there any real potential, should I leave it be, start branch selection?

Any help is much appreciated as I have very little knowledge of pines.

IMAG0066.jpg

[deepeetee]

Hi Nick,

There are people on this forum with far greater knowledge than myself, but i will put my two cents in for what it is worth.

Love the growing box!
The pine looks a little top heavy, whilst the bottom half looks a little weak and there arent too many branches to choose from around the middle.

Are you happy with the trunk size?
My understanding is to get the roots and trunk size close to where you want it and then worry about branches and branch selection later.

If you are happy with the trunk size, then you need to work on your lowest branch and start to thicken that up. Id clear out some of the foliage up top to drive more into your selected lowest branch.

Unsure whether now is the right time of year. Someone else might be able to help out there, or do a little more reading on here to see if you cant find the info. Maybe use the search bar in the top right hand corner, im sure there is heaps of info on the forum about JBP's

Good luck with it

Dave

[Gerard]

I would put a lot more bends into the trunk before it thickens too much, pluck a few needles at the top and feed it.

Grow box is good, you should see good results in a couple of years.

[toohey]

Hi,
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Leong was born in Sitiawan, Malaysia and went to Australia as a student in 1970 where he qualified as a hospital scientist majoring in Microbiology. He worked for 30 years in his qualified field. His interest in bonsai started in 1973. Two years later, he began studies under the tutelage of the late Mr Vita Koreshoff, completing the Nippon Bonsai Saikei course.

He has travelled many times to Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, visiting, learning about and acquiring bonsai materials from these countries. He has held three major exhibitions in 1985, 1987 and 1990. He demonstrated in the 1994 Otago Bonsai Conference held in Dunedin, New Zealand and 1995 Bonsai Club International (BCI) Conference in Sydney, Australia, where he currently resides.

Since the 1995 BCI conference, Leong has concentrated on improving his collection of bonsai and establishing a comprehensive bonsai nursery. In 1998 with his wife Sue, he established Bonsai South Nursery, replacing his Eastern Bonsai Nursery which was established in 1983. The nursery now houses some of the finest bonsai in Australia.

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[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi Nick,

As Gerard has indicated, you should shape a main trunk first; the longer you leave it, the harder it is to wire and bend it. I am not too sure what to suggest, just search for black pine via Google, I am sure you will find a lot of great black pine bonsai. They will give you an idea of how you would like your tree to look like.

Don't get disappointed if I could not achieve what you had in mind. In a few years it will look different and perhaps improve itself as well.

Please keep us posted, and good luck.

Best regards.

[Mojo Moyogi]

First two things that popped into my head when I saw this tree was Mass and Movement, this tree needs a decent bit of both. I would untangle the roots, wire some shape into it and put the tree in the ground (or a styro box at least) and let it fly, plenty of feed and when the tree has lots of strength, I would chop it at the 1st branch, let that leader grow for a couple of seasons until it is 1/2 to 2/3 of the diameter of the section below and repeat the process 'till I had a trunk that I was happy with.

Cheers,
Mojo

[Guy]

asap at the appropriate time get rid of any bar branches--let it grow

[nick-laing]

Thanks guys, I thought this thread was dead. Any thoughts on the best time to put shape into the tree? My thought was to place an air layer and separate the tree into two.