AusBonsai

Hi Joe,

In case you don't know him Katsumi Kinoshita is a Japanese-born resident of Monterey, CA and has been living in there since 1955. He started collecting Monterey pine from their native habitat a few years after arriving and thus has some of the oldest ones that are bonsai. From your description the needles on the trees that you have are longer and more difficult to deal with than the native variety here. I have the one that was in my post and some seedlings as well as a full size one in my yard. The full size one has much longer needles than any of the ones in pots. The longest needles on my good bonsai are about 4 inches. I am hoping to reduce that to 2-3 inches over the next few years. It would not surprise me to find that the pines used for timber had been selectively bred to have larger needles to make them faster growing.

I ran across two articles when I was looking through an old box of "Golden Statements" magazines. Since they are long out of print and our club is a member organization of GSBF, the publisher, we are allowed to reprint them. I will be entering the better of the two articles onto our website http://www.bssf.org sometime soon.

The critical instruction in the article is this "The trick is to cut back the candles that develop each spring to five or six needles in length in late June or during July and to remove back to its base any candle that appears to be especially vigorous. Under this regimen, the needles will be reduced to the desired size in only a few years. Kinoshita cautions that the procedure should be used sparingly or omitted altogether in years when the trees are repotted." Quoting the other article: "The Monterey Pine responds well to heavy pruning by sending out lots of new foliage. Mr. Kinoshita lets the spring growth elongate, but he cuts it off at the end of June. Subsequently, he allows two buds to develop at the tip of each branch. In the fall he removes the old needles.

As you are most likely aware, the end of June is about one week after the summer solstice here, so I would think you would cut the new growth at about the end of December. I see that you are in zone 10 by the US numbers. Technically, Monterey's are native to Zone 10 in the US, but it is deceptive because although we are in Zone 10, the summertime high temperatures are typically only 65 to 75 degrees fahrenheit due to the marine influence. I was keeping mine in full sun last summer but it started to turn yellow. I noticed that the needles have greened up over the winter. My conclusion is that the tree prefers cooler temperatures. Perhaps if you keep your trees in slightly more shade the needles would be shorter?

I've been in Mr. Kinoshita's yard and seen his trees. He grows them in dense soil, contrary to conventional techniques. Find attached a couple photos of one of his best trees. I think he routinely gets the needles down to about 2 inches. Both these trees are about 36 inches high.

I've been in Mr. Kinoshita's yard and seen his trees. He grows them in dense soil, contrary to conventional techniques.

john m wrote:There is a definite reduction in needle length after the first year( only on old trees)