AusBonsai

Beautiful tree Joe, very high quality bonsai right there, love the length in the low branch, gives great balance

Love it.
Fantastic!

Looks great - loved looking back and seeing it's progression.
Any chance of some better Pics in the daylight and of the trunk?

Hi Jow,enjoying your trees progress,a question if you don't mind, putting aside weaker areas where we don't cut for small needles because of health,are you staggering cutting times on spring growth for your mid December cut as you generally do for your small needles, in other words do you cut a tree all in one day or is there a time frame you use for small or large trees for even growth balanced trees,just curious as to what others do with a pine being a topical grower,interesting thread thanks Anthony.

Jow wrote:Well, a couple more years have past. I've learnt more an improved my work and this little tree has been slowly growing out my previous mistakes.

The last few nights after work I've been sitting down with a few rolls of copper wire and working my way through this tree. It wasn't styled last year and was only de candled as I didn't have the time to get to it.

I am finally happy with its shape and although it's not a perfect example by any means I am enjoying looking at it again.

Next up I need to spend a few more night tweaking the foliage and repotting it into a nicer pot. Probably a bigei I picked up in Japan during one of my last visits.
Any way. Here is the result thus far.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1442224872.585471.jpg

Looking very nice Jo. Can you take another pic in brighter light?

Hi all. Thanks for the nice comments. I could take a pic in better light but I'm not home much during daylight hours so you might have to wait a little while.

Anthony, the answer to your question is an annoying one of "it depends".

For the most part I now do all my candle pruning in one go as in on the same day. It does a good job and you can do a fair amount of growth balancing using this system.

Cutting in stages gives a bit of a better result in terms of balancing growth but the gains in this regard are probably offset by the extra time spent as you have to work on the tree over 3 or 4 days spread out over a month or so. I take the one cut method and get slightly less balancing effect most of the time due to the time it saves me.

If I have a huge imbalance in a tree I sometimes cut in stages.

The main things with pines is consistency. If you are starting out pick one technique an stick with it for a few seasons. All the candle cutting techniques work but they will not be that great if you chop and change between them. To pick a technique, find someone using one that gets the results you are after and get their info. At the end of the day the results will tell you how good a grower is and how well they understand the techniques they are using and how effective the system they use is.

Hoe that helps.

Joe.

Very nice Joe.

Looks an absolute treat!
No doubt you'll bless us with some more appropriate photo's soon

Thank you Joe,good man appreciate that,sounds like pretty much what I'm trying to do,only my final cutting for smaller needle is first week to second week January usually (weather conditions sometimes over or under) as I live in the Illawarra next region south of Sydney on the coast,mainly temperate with some tropical during summer(very high humidity)...cheers Anthony

What have your results been like cutting at those times?

Very good most of the time but the weather did turn rainy and cold catching me on a red and two blacks but this one got through,goes to show importance of health and a bit of luck.This pine got through nicely last couple years with consistent size,very happy with this one I like the top and exaggerated branch and now putting some hair on its back/side,tree stands just under ten inches top of pot to top of tree,little way to go but getting results Joe...cheers Anthony

I have heard some people claim that Sydney was too far north to successfully candle prune. Nice to see some pics proving this wrong.

Boics wrote:Very nice Joe.

Looks an absolute treat!
No doubt you'll bless us with some more appropriate photo's soon

After I repot and tweak it I plan on displaying it at the BSV show this October. I will grab some pics then when it is in display mode.