Vance Wood

Wabashene: You wrote the following:
Apart from this last point, we have nothing controversial really and the JWP doesn’t appear t be any different from any other pine species – so why all the fuss?

You went through all of that and came up with that conclusion? I am amazed. If you have both two needle pines and a White Pine watch them this year and make note of when each starts forming buds. You will find that two needle Pines form buds early in the season and White Pines form buds late into the fall. White Pines are weak and slow to respond with new buds. The advise that your received that the two trees are opposite is fundamentally correct. You were probably told techniques without being furnished a reason for them. Two needle pines as I mentioned form new buds early. Therefore if you pinch or remove the weaker shoots or candles early you stimulate this response to produce new buds early on the weaker shoots. In essence you give them a head start. Ten days latter you do the same to the strong shoots which will start forming buds in response. In the end the weaker shoots have had ten day to two weeks longer to make buds and by fall the stronger shoots will have produced smaller buds being ten day to two weeks less in growing time.

White Pines respond differently. When you cut of candles you may not see new buds form unless the location is very vigorous in the first place. So the idea is to work on the buds by removing more of the new more vigorous shoots or candles shorter and the weaker not as much and sometimes latter. You are giving the weaker growth more time to grow and more energy to grow with, and less of both to the more vigorous arteas.

In short if you look at it this way it is easier to understand. With two needle Pines you are playing head start with the weaker growth. With five needle Pines you are playing catch up with the weaker growth.

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The only finished bonsai is a dead one; me 1992 MABA Des Moines Iowa