AusBonsai

Hi All,

I've got a JBP at about 6 yrs old that i have been using clip and grow and its likely due to a solid autumn clean up and removing needles and very leggy / cross branches.

question is, is it a good time of year to conduct these works? perhaps removing 50% of foliage to allow light to get inside the tree? I did this last year without too many ill effects if i remember correctly. They were not candle cut over summer just a heavy prune spring etc

expert advice would be good!

Autumn is the accepted time to thin out black pines.
Even if you have not decandled in summer you can still do autumn work. Hard to see what response you got to the earlier trim but I can see a couple of long shoots which is typical of earlier spring pruning for JBP

Remember that new buds will grow from any healthy needles so try to leave needles in areas I may want to get shoots in future. This means do not just rip off all inner needles and just leave clusters at the end of shoots.

Autumn work can include:

• thin out shoots where you have clusters or whorls. Try to have only 1 branch at any fork where possible.
  removing old needles if appropriate

• thin out new needles so there's only 6-8 pairs on each shoot. That limits food production so next years growth will be more equal all over the tree.

• Long new shoots can be pruned back to healthy needles where next growth is desired. At this time of year new buds will take time to appear but they will almost certainly develop strong shoots next spring. You can also defer that pruning until late spring and prune in lieu of candle cutting to get shorter shoots more suitable for developing ramification in the same locations.

Thanks!

I've been through the process on more mature tree's but not one's i've been cutting a growing really as im slowly starting to slow them down and preparing for a proper maintenance regime.

This is the end result for 1 of them for now.

Cut back to 2 pairs of buds, reduce crossing branches or overly thick branches on the whorls, reduce any really leggy branches.

I still struggle with "remove old needles" without leaving a bunch of bare wood behind the tip, someone needs to write a good guide for that =O)

Good enough for trees in development. Some extra growth will enhance trunk and branch thickening and you can still cut back next time. In many cases you'll be chopping back to lower branches at some stage anyway so managing outer growth is not needed except in areas you plan to retain in future.

The way I see it you don't always need to remove lower needles and leave a bare lower stem and a tuft of needles at the end.
Also no need to confine pruning to youngest shoots as I see you have done on a couple of strong ones near the top.
Where I have long shoots and need more ramification back along that branch I do not hesitate to cut into the previous season shoot. New buds will still grow from last year's needles so by cutting hard I not only reduce needles but also shoot length and get shoots back where I want them.

If reducing needles but not pruning there's no reason we should not leave the lower needles and pull the ones near the end of the shoot. Because I usually want new shoots at the sides of branches rather than top and bottom I tend to pull all needles from the top and bottom of shoots first then see if I need to take more off to balance.