AusBonsai

What a great event! Congratulations and thanks to Leigh, Shannon and the team at the NBPCA. I truly hope that Bonsai Week will become an annual event.

I worked on my cascade squamata with Pavel and he proved that less is more. Over than half the branches on the cascade were removed. The best advice I gained from Pavel was that we all need to study horticulture more to learn as much as possible about plant health and correct timing of work. 95% of the time we spend with our tree's is keeping them alive and only 5% is spent trimming and styling them.

Thanks heaps for the opportunity Leigh!!

Regards,
Steven

Watto,

Great work, being buxus I assume that it was a large undefined shrub?

The work defining pads was great, I look forward to seeing this one in person in the future.


Steven,

I have to say that when I saw your squamata, I thought 'another spikey juniper...no thanks!' but after you finished the detailed wiring I though 'YES PLEASE!' Awesome tree, and another that I look forward to seeing its future.

Thanks again Leigh, and NBPCA!

looking at junipers, black pines, white pines..it is commonto de-candle the needles now?

decandle and remove needles are 2 distinct different procedures.
Decandle is to remove the new shoots and is generally late spring/early summer in most places. Decandling at the correct time of year forces the tree to make new buds which should be shorter and can have smaller needles which looks good for bonsai.
Remove old needles can be done whenever the new buds have opened but is often done in autumn. Removing old needles limits the amount of energy a branch can collect and will affect the vigour of the branch in the following year. Removing needles is also to make it easier to apply wire and bend the branches. It can also stimulate the tree to produce back buds on bare parts of the branch.
The trees at the workshop have had old needles removed to allow the wiring and bending. The new shoots from spring were mostly left on the trees, maybe thinned a sit if there were a lot in any spots.

In short, there is nothing unusual in removing old needles at this time of year and the trees should grow back after this treatment.

Hi Tuma, Ryan Neil did a very insightful lecture in the UK in 2013 on developing Pines, these have been posted on the forum before and are well worth a look.

Japanese Black Pine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn1FiRw2JBo
Japanese White Pine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Y6j2wgI2U

Cheers,
Mojo

I'm sitting down listening to the much needed rain in Canberra and reflecting on last week.
I would personally like to thank everyone who attended bonsai week and also to those who spread the word but couldn't come. I didn't get much time to speak to all of the workshop crew on the Saturday due to family commitments. (Matt & Scott especially)

So hopefully we can all catch up again before next years bonsai week.

Cheers
Shannon

tuma wrote:looking at junipers, black pines, white pines..it is commonto de-candle the needles now?

In addition to the above, our own wiki has some great info and a writeup by Shibui on Ryan's methods
https://www.ausbonsai.com.au/wiki/index. ... Black_Pine

Ken

Here's an after photo of the black pine I took to Canberra for Pavel's workshop. I think the front might be slightly further to the left because I can't see the lines of the second branch in that picture but it will have to do you for now.

He picked up on the tight bends at the base of the lowest branch and wanted to continue with that theme of wild, twisted branches so wrapped, wired and bent the second branch upward then abruptly down. That makes it look more wild and less man made.
Though it is pretty bare at the moment I'm happy with the result. Before it was just a large trunk with foliage way out on the ends of long branches. Now it has a reason to have longer, snaking branches and has the foliage positioned to cover the bare places.
Note that all the older needles have been removed to allow wiring. Only new shoots from last spring remain. I'll now leave it until December then decandle and start a maintenance program to force short shoots and smaller needles and see how it develops.
Thanks to NBPCA for the opportunity.

Hi Shibui,

Your pine was one of the most interesting trees of the week. It was difficult material used in a really exciting way.

Grant

Finally got a chance to repot as Pavel suggested.