White pine

[kez]

Hey folks,

Made a trip up to bonsai south on Saturday for a look around. I have always wanted to grow more white pine but I have been put off by the nature of grafted material, A while ago I was lucky to pick up a shohin sized tree, and this weekend I added to the collection with a beautiful mid size tree.

IMG_4438 (1280x853).jpg

This tree had a nice sized trunk with some great movement and most importantly the graft was down below the soil line so invisible.

Yesterday I got to work and after about 4 hours here's the end result

IMG_4446 (1280x853).jpg

The apex needs a chance to fill in over the next few years but so far I am happy with where it has ended up

Hope you all enjoy,

Kerrin

[Hal]

Surely that's a rare find Kez. I've been looking for a non-grafted white for a while... Good potential by the look of it.

Cheers,
Hal.

[bodhidharma]

A great result Kerrin They take a long time to "bark up" and i have one where the graft is higher. it is now starting to bark up but i don't think it will completely bark up in my lifetime. The problem with a very low graft is that it can develop a very skinny "under the soil line" reverse taper, but i guess you will find that out next repot. Great future for this one.

[Firecat]

I do find this interesting as i have avoided grafts forever.
Too late to try this at my age but I do like it.

Steve.

[bonsaisensation]

Hi Kerrin
Good find. Good white pines are very hard to find. When I select a white pine, I pay particular attentions to the thickness of a branch and the closeness of the buds to the trunk. With thickness, often branches can be left to grow too thick, which make them undesirable to use. With closeness of buds, when branches are not maintained, inner buds would die as the exterior branches grow stronger. And I think your tree show some of those issues.
I can see in the photos, branches are been positioned backwards, upwards and looped around to make up for the lack of inner buds. It's ok I suppose in the first styling. I'd usually cut the long branches back hard to the remaining buds and nurture those to grow stronger to encourage further back buds. Once that happens, you'd have better branches for the structure. So I'd sacrifice the short term, immediate "fullness" of the canopy, for Long term branching structures.

Food for thoughts?


Regards

Tien

[kez]

Thanks for the comments folks,

Point taken Tien, there just isnt much more than 6 or 7 branch ends in the apex at the moment, the branch structure will be sorted in a couple of seasons after some back budding but for now Im happy with the overall apex silhouette

Cheers,

Kerrin