AusBonsai

I picked up this Black Pine from Mason of Bonsai by the Bay at the AusBonsai Community Market Day 2015. I was looking for a raw tree with a few options to be able to have a go at styling something rather than just growing it on. It is about 18 years old and recently been dug from the field.
The branches were a little bare by the trunk and so I cut back to 2 secondary branches where ever there was more and cut into the needles to allow more light into the interior and try to encourage some back budding. I was hoping now was an alright time as it will give the tree plenty of time to set new buds before winter
I have left most branches on to allow for better styling options and only removed a couple of small lower branches. The low right hand branch I will leave as a sacrifice branch to try and thicken the base of the tree as well as the lower left hand to help with the trunk below that. The branch coming from the left of the first bend will become the first branch.

So, should I wire the branches down to also encourage back budding

Also I just reread Grants post of A Tale of 32 Black Pines and he said he didn't do any top work straight away so he could repot them all first with plenty of foliage to encourage roots. Can I repot this one this autumn (probably about May, its still pretty much summer up here on Mid North Coast NSW) Mason said it still had some field soil in up under the base and the mix seems pretty fine and heavy.

Hey, good purchase. Mase is a good guy with some really nice stock.

Re your comment that "the mix seems pretty fine and heavy", I got a Chinese Elm from him a while back and the pot was HEAVY and the soil fine and solid. I thought to slip pot it, but when I lifted, saw how fine and tightly packed and airless the soil mix was. Had to hose it out at high pressure just to move it.

Now, I know that the received wisdom is never to bare root a pine, so recommend that you get some advice from those better qualified (or you may already be across it), but just wanted to say that it is a valid concern that you have and you should try and do something as soon as you can.

In saying that, despite my misgivings about the soil mix, Mase's trees all look good and healthy, so it isn't fatal. But, my Chinese Elm has really thrived after a complete soil switch out (after going into shock and looking like it might kick the bucket for a while there).


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I'm just dreaming about my jb pine atm till the girth thickens similar to yours.

My first step with new stock is to repot into the mix I am comfortable with. However, I would not repot in May.

Give this tree as long as you can to set buds and recover from the late cutting. Repot may be fine in late winter depending on the how it is doing (August for me in Canberra but may be earlier for you).

If the soil is very dense, try a half bareroot. Let one side grow almost untouched and get all the dense soil out of the other. This takes time in the first two years but it pays off in the longer term as you have all good soil surrounding the roots and no field soil trapped under the base of the tree.

http://bonsaistudygroup.com/japanese-bl ... y-can-jbp/
http://bonsaistudygroup.com/general-dis ... ue-survey/

i dug five JBP from my growing bed last spring while the new candles are extending(september 2014) all with base thicker than yours. i bare rooted them then cut all the thick roots off. by the time to pot them up, each tree only has maximum of 10 thinner roots coming straight off the base. they were then potted into sifted diatomite and pine bark 50/50 mixture. the sacrifice branch was chopped off, the rest of the usable branches were cut back quite hard to some new growth.
they have all made it through and are thriving( back buds even on the bare stump of the original sacrifice branch). so i guess if you are game enough, you can try in spring. if not, what scott suggested is a good option.


regards


tien

Thanks Scoot and Tien.

So probably should have repotted and cut back hard next spring after it had settled in. I have done things to black pines out of proper season before, mainly repots with severe root prune and worked on tops too without any negative affects. So maybe our ides on what they can handle isn't as conservative as sometimes thought.

I will wait until spring for a repot and foliar feed until then as I don't think a big bunch of chook poo will help with the mix it is in.

So what about the wiring? Should I do now to help with backbiting along the branches

You could do fertilising,wiring and shaping now and leave repotting for 12 or 18 months. Cut the pot down so you can see into the base of the tree while it sits on your shelves.

Unlikely to get new buds this side of winter but the prune you have given it should get something going in spring.

Grant

Oh and great stock! A good find.

Grant

Thanks grant for the info. I don't have a lot of experience with pines but it was what I was thinking.

As for the find, it was the top of my list, so a very quick lap of the sales as they opened saw me back at this one handing over the money.

Would love to workshop this one but being so far away from where they happen leaves me with this site. So thank you once again to all the great contributors to this site.

hi dansai
wiring will not neccesarily help with the back budding. it will open up the branch structure to allow light and air to reach the inner part of the branch. i wire early to set the branch angle down.
i found the best way to get backbuds is to cut the branches back really hard(can be done just after the Spring first flush of growth where you thin out the old needless and select the new growth back to two or in mid to late summer where you pretty much do the same thing as the Spring procedures). the point is when you see back bud, you have to cut back to it(meaning removing the more mature needles and growth at the end either all at once or back to bare minimum sets of needles). this will encourage the back buds to grow into a branch. if it is not done, the back buds will lose vigour then weaken and die in a matter of months to couple of years. it also does one thing very important to the design of tree, which is introducing taper to the branches.
　　

Thanks Tien. This was along what I was trying to achieve and I realise my timing was out due to it being new stock.

I was wondering if wiring the branches down will expose more of the top of the branches to sun and auxins and hence be more likely to produce buds in bare areas close to the trunk. I have done this with a few natives and often strong buds will form at the highest point of the branch. (That is if the branch leaves the trunk, curves up slightly and then down, the highest point often forms the strongest new growth). I don't know if this works for JBP's, but I thought with their apical dominance this may work

hi dansai
interesting observation, i don't know if it applies to JBP. the auxin obvious will be more prominent at the highest point of the tree, in most cases, the apex. as for a branch with only foliage at the tip to be wired down where making the foliage lower than that of the bare section of the same branch, i don't think auxin will be a factor in contributing to the budding of the bare section.
as far as i am aware, auxin is present at the tips of the new green foliage so if anything that helps, i'd think it's the removal of the strong growth especially the top portion of the tree that redistribute the energy to the lower portion of the tree temperarily until the top part takes over again.
i've certainly observed good back budding in the lower branches when the top is reduced heavily or completely removed and replaced with a thinner branch wired up to be the new apex.

thanks for the discussion.



regards

Tien

Ok. So I did a bit of reading in my Botany For Gardeners (Brian Capon) which was my introduction to plant hormones. I had in my head that auxin will accumulate in the top side of the branch. However it is in the lower part of a young stem that it accumulates causing the cells in the underside to elongate more and thereby the stem grows more upright. The same happens on the shady side of a stem causing the stem to grow towards the light. This is obviously more effective in a elongating stem as opposed to an established branch/trunk.

From further reading on the web the role of auxins on apical dominance seems to be relatively little understood but generally agreed that it is produced by the growing meristem (tip) and that will suppress lateral buds below it. Further away from the tip, lower concentrations allows lateral buds to develop and branching occurs. Different species produce different amounts of auxins and react differently to their presence and so some species are strongly apical dominant (pines are a good example), others not so and yet others exhibit very little (shrubs).

If i hadn't just spent good money on this pine I may have done some experimenting by wiring half the branches down and the others not to see if there is a difference. As it is I might remove a little more of the top, wire what I want to keep with a bit more to spare and repot in spring doing the half/half method recommended by Scott.

Hi Dansai . Nice to meet you and your dad the other day . You are quick out of the block . I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this one . I'm taking the one I got at the market to the 'Snowy Chat ' (a little local group) tomorrow to throw around a few ideas and hopefully get some idea on care in my climate . I will start a thread when I work out where to go .
Cheers Craig

Sno wrote:Hi Dansai . Nice to meet you and your dad the other day . You are quick out of the block .

Hey Graig. Nice to meet you to. Might be a bit too quick, but I've been wanting a decent sized JBP ready for styling for a while. Actually styling might take a bit longer. Enjoy the snowy chat and good luck with the pine.

Cheers Dan