AusBonsai

I was lucky enough to be given this pine(one and a half years old) two years ago from a guy that I helped in his Demo at the bonsai by the harbour.
He was showing how he had used the technique of growing JBP from seedlings in Bonsai Today No# 12.
It's not rocket science he said just follow the instructions and you will have material like my 8 year old here.
you can see the little one he gave me in the forground of this picture with it's 8 year old brother. I thought it wise to start at year two of the instuctions last year wich was a year dedicated to growth after a slip potting.
I chopped the top leader off late winter as advised and it is time for it's first refinement of the roots. The roots look dam good with no downward growing roots so I just clipped a little off and potted into a bigger pot. It is year 4 that it is meant to go into an akadama mix as per instructions but I don't think that will matter I have mixed up the years a bit already.
Here it is repotted in 7 parts akada and 3 parts coarse sand. The other pine is probably about the same age? I got it from Mase maybe he can tell us? I will post about this in another thread with my larger pine I repotted. Now I slowly increase feeding and slip potting into a larger pot for the next two years thickening the trunk. Then I select a front and start a ten year plan to reduce the sacrafice branches. Then the fun begins with 15 years of slowing the tree down and refining the growth.
Here is what is expected at 15 years old and a masterpiece at 33 years old

Brett great thread mate , like your little guy alot has all the low branches you need. do you have another pic of the 8 year pine to see trunk width and shape?

is all this done by pot growing? or is there some open ground growing involved in this? it will be an awesome transformation for that to become what you are showing us just by pot growing, even if it is just "grow box" or oversize pots!

It was very hard to get a picture that showed the size of the trunk but here are a few that should give some idea. They are always grown in a pot. Not to big at first and alot of slip potting as it needs more room with root work limited as much as possible to speed up the growth.
Here I am poking some soil back in the pot it was growing in.

Thats the way to do it! , fantastic taper and nebari. is he going to graft future branches on or does he have enough small branches and buds in close to the trunk.

thats absolutly amazing. looks like slip potting from now on for my little jbp! i am going to be avidly following this thread to see how it goes to!!

I think as the sacrafice branches are reduced the trunk already has or will bud out on the trunk. That is what is suggested in the article anyway. I think you start selecting wich ones to use when it is 5 years old in the 10 year plan. I am sure grafting could be an option though.
Remember that one shown is 8 years old and still seems to have most of it's sacrafice branches I think he was enjoying pushing it to see how big he could get it.
I reckomend getting Bonsai today No#12 it is all laid out in steps and pretty easy to follow. Almost the whole magazine is about growing bonsai from seed. There are many variations to this technique that will give results of smaller trees in less time. They suggest a variation or two in teh article.

I just realised could this be the first posted picture of Dot on the forum She was very intrested in this Demo!

Hey Jamie although slip potting is an important factor here I think another main one is getting teh roots right to start with. This is done at a very early age with these but I guess that could be adapted for an older tree. It is all about how many mouths there are more mouths(root tips) more food (nutrients) can be eaten.
I guess I better explain the first step of making cuttings out of seedlings but I will have to do that another day. Unless someone else wants too

There is a similar technique in the Bonsai Today Pines book, on page 140, using plastic collanders and a free draining mix, using heavy watering and feed. The article in the book discusses growing JBP, primarily shohin from seed and then cuttings from the emerging seedlings. There is no reason why this program as described could not be initiated from the second or third year as described, beginning with seedling material that is available everywhere in Australia. In 6-8 yrs, we could all be producing trees of the quality that are pictured in the book, of which there almost none in the country!

noah78 and I both have Yatsabusa JBPs from seed that would do this in 5yrs, were going to give it a go aren't we? (answer is yes mate!)

Cheers
MM

I was wondering wether the cutting technique would work with my 1 year old seedlings I believe I read that the older they where the harder succes was for making cuttings of seedlings. Made me think 1 year old might be ok. I will have to try a few this year and see how they go? In any event that was a waste of a year because I wasn't game
I remember this guy was not keen on the colander and double colinander way of doing it but that may just be personal. I tend to plant my better trees in terracotta over a colinder. I think they are hard to beat the trees seem to love them.

Hi Brett, I meant that we could pick up the training program from y2 or y3 as in appears in the book, this is long after the growing from cutting stage. Unless you have a proper automated misting or fogging cutting bed setup, trying to root JBP's from larger than freshly emerged seedlings would be a very risky proposition.

MM

Already doing it mate to the only one you parted with got some good real low branches pushing strong candles now. Its a bit late to plant in a larger pot for me now, maybe slip pot? otherwise i may miss a season of better growth.

Hey Mojo I am with ya. I feard you might have misunderstood I was not talking about making cuttings of older material. I just could not think of another way to write it without getting long winded

great thread indeed bretts. love ya starting material and sit on the edge of my chair waiting to see the results each year. there is much merrit in this method.