AusBonsai

Hi there fellow bonsai enthusiasts.
This is my first post.
I picked up this JBP from a nursery in Melbourne and as it's my first pine, I have no idea where to start.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I ultimately want it to be a smallish tree.
Should I make a chop?
Which angle should be the front?
Etc.
Thanks in advance.

Hi Barber. Welcome to bonsai and to Ausbonsai. Hope you find it helpful.
JBP as your first foray into bonsai???? You've certainly chosen a challenge. JBP are quite hardy so you should be able to keep it alive but they have unique needs as far as pruning and maintenance. Quite different to most other species so you will need to do some homework to find out how to manage it through the year.
You'll need to attach a picture if you want specific comments or advice on a tree. Ausbonsai can only take files under 1MB so you may need to compress the picture file or reduce the size a little before it will load the picture. I'll wait to see the tree before offering more.

Welcome Barber. All Shibui said is correct and if you could include your location in your profile that will also make it easier for people to provide location appropriate comments.
I hope you enjoy the site as much as I do.

Welcome to the group Barber,

Interesting choice to start with a pine! As Shibui notes, their habit of growth is different to other species, but once you understand how it grows it is reasonably straight forward.

There is heaps of great information around for pines, especially JBP, so you should have fun with it I hope

Hi Barber,
Welcome to the forum!
I'm going to assume that this was your first post, and your first pine BUT not your first tree given that you have your "Bonsai Age" at 4 (and your favourite species is Juniper)... which gives you a bit of experience right?
I'm also going to assume you're in Melbourne given the nursery you bought your tree from is here??

So - what to do? I don't know about where your front is - You have a lot of branching down low wired in a lot of directions so I think you have options. Look for the best view of the base/nebari ... widest/most interesting angles and turns that has some scope to use that branching to develop your tree from. Remember you can tilt the pot to change up the angle of the base exiting the soil - this may throw up a few different options.

You say you want a smallish tree, so if that's the case and you are happy with the girth of your base you can move past just growing on to thicken and look to begin branch refinement. Now is the time to be decandling in Melbourne. There is a link to a video from DavidN which looks at the decandling process if you're not familiar with it and this may help you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipkPTdOCBz0
Decandle if ... you are looking to reduce needle size, reduce internode length and increase ramification (I'm assuming you know a little about this). If you need back budding along those branches you may be best to let those branches grow, increase needle volume, energy and vigour and then look at decandling next year?? Hard to see what is happening in relation to buds. Looking at the pic you posted, I think that the section marked in red needs to go eventually. You won't get reliable budding (if at all) on this section of trunk and it is long and taperless given you want a small tree, so I would look at using one of the branches immediately below as your new apex. NOTE : I'm not saying this view is the front - just using it to illustrate the part of the tree I'm talking about.

Too much more I could go on about - but hopefully that gives you a place to start. Pines are a bit of a different beast to other trees ... I don't think they're harder - just different.

And this is where we find out that pines need special treatment.

Some facts about pines to bear in mind:
Pines rarely produce buds on bare branches or trunks. This means you must maintain branches with needles or smaller shoots where you will eventually want buds to form.
Pines will produce buds where there are healthy needles. This means you can allow the branches or trunk to grow longer if you want to make the trunk thicker but only as long as there are healthy needles where you want to cut back to and get new shoots.
Needles usually live for 2-3 years. This means you can usually allow the trunk and branches to grow freely for a couple of years before cutting back hard if you want to thicken a part of the tree.
I see 3 distinct phases in the life of a bonsai pine:
First is growth and development where the tree is allowed to grow freely so it thickens quickly. You still need to keep an eye out and maintain suitable shoots or healthy needles in places you want to cut back to so occasional pruning is required.
Second phase is ramification. That's when pruning happens each year to get short shoots and to produce more branch divisions.
Third phase is maintenance when the shape has been established and pruning is aimed at maintaining the outline and maintaining inner shoots and shorter needles.

You need to decide whether your pine is still developing. Do you want the trunk to be thicker? Need to follow growing pine format.
Happy with trunk thickness but need more ramification on the branches? Need to move to decandling and needle thinning schedule to make it ramify and produce short shoots.
Are there long, bare sections on the trunk or branches where you would really like more branches? Need to cut those sections off and grow a new section from adjacent branches that already have shorter sections or have healthy needles that will produce buds. Ryceman has pointed out one such section.
Does the trunk have sufficient taper? Bonsai look better when the trunk and branches all start thick but get gradually (or quickly) thinner. Best way to make taper is to prune off thick sections and replace them with adjacent thinner sections.

I see you have wired some really young shoots. The green sections on lower branches. I can see that in some cases the shoots have been wrapped around the wire they are so soft. Those long, green sections have all grown this spring. Note that they all have a bare section with no needles. That area will hardly ever grow buds so if you keep those you will always have long bare area on the branch. Not so good for bonsai so we rarely bother wiring those new shoots because they will almost always be cut off at some stage. They can be cut in December (decandling) and new buds will form right near the start at the end of last year's shoot. If you want the trunk or branch to thicken those shoots can be left to grow as long as possible and cut them off next year after which new buds will usually form in the needles of the previous section.

Much of this is easier to show than to write but I hope by now you are beginning to understand that pines are very different from most other species in the way they grow and the maintenance requirements.

If this was my pine I would probably decandle some of those lower shoots with the aim of using them to grow the apex and branches of the future bonsai then maintain those with short shoots. I would then allow the current trunk to grow freely for a year or 2 to thicken the base of the trunk as a sacrifice branch then cut it right off in a year or 2 but there are many ways to grow a bonsai and others will have different opinions.