Pine Pinching

FredL

Jim, thanks for your comments. I'm coming to one conclusion VERY quickly: There is no substitute for experience in this area. Even if I were working with as well known a species as J. Black Pine, this would be true, to say nothing of working with a comparatively unknown species, as I am. I'm happy I've collected 16 trees. I'd been thinking that perhaps I'd overdone my collecting, but after reading the evergreengardenworks comments it seems like it's impossible to have too much material to develop experience with.

I'm beginning to think that it is wise to limit the number of species that I work with rather than the number of individual trees. If I work with 100 trees, it's probably wiser to limit myself to 5 to 10 species and develop a more in depth understanding of a few species than to try to work with every species that's available in my area. It seems like there's a lot of ways to go wrong with Pines, particularly, and I'm going to need to try things with them and see what happens before I'll be able to really understand what I'm doing.

The comment about understanding the needs of individual trees is also significant. I've got one tree that has obviously got great potential as a Literati, but which has to weaned away from being too "leggy". At the same time, it still has to be nursed along from my very traumatic early effort at collecting a difficult tree. Well, I guess such challenges is what the Bonsai Game is all about.

At the same time, how I'd love to see what somebody really good could do with this tree!

Anyway, thanks for your help.

Fred

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bnsaijim

Fred,

This is why pines are the "kings". Everyone admires them. You'll admire them even more when you appreciate the effort that goes in.

I'm busy doing my annual "thinking" on my pines so all this is very good in clarifying my own techniques. I'm probably overly cautious in some cases but I rarely lose pines due to technique application.

I went looking through some random notes to see if I had anything specific on this species. No direct hits but in re-reading I think a good approach is to relate it back to JBP. Keeping everything relative gets you away from the calendar. Usually weaker means doing things earlier or not at all...

You mentioned a tall literati... What I might do is this...

Goals:

no increase in height
continue recovery
increase density/latent bud initiation
balance zones


Standard techniques:

Fertilize alternating with dilute organic and chemical fertilizers every 1-2 weeks.

Careful monitoring of watering frequency.

Instead of drastically pruning back to a bud, branch or whorl, take it back gradually, i.e., one whorl every month or two, or one big cut per year.

I might :

1. skip all techniques let tree grow freely, cut back new growth in the fall on the strongest tallest areas. Thin needles according to strength in November through January (timing not critical)

Or

2. just work the very strong areas and to a conservative extent. Weaker areas would go completely untouched. Candle, thin buds, pull needles probably only in the strong areas,. Especially if I have only two very clear "zones" - very strong and very weak. At each session you kind of re-evaluate zones in case some strong area is now medium - you'd pull less needles.


Another good link on Needle Pulling by Randy Bennett, New Orleans Club.

While needle pulling may not be appropriate just yet, Randy does a very good job in explaining balancing the tree zones; in a climate very similar to ours...

http://www.gnobs.org/expert%27s_corner.htm

Enjoy,

Jim

FredL

Jim, I am very impressed with the thought process you have laid out. Goals, identify alternatives, apply techniques chosen. I'm getting close to cutting through the confusion and entering that blessed state of "Hey! I can do this!".

Really appreciate the time you've taken. I'll bet alot of other "lurkers" have profited as well!

Fred

growermn

Actually i look but dont post very often. I mostly grow maples, but have some 3 year old pines, and 2 blue spruce that i am just now starting to to play with. Have develped good roots on these, now is time to work on branches. Good info.....Thanks
Jeff

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David Chauvin

Fred,

A while back, I was observing an experienced artist working on a JBP. As he worked, he explained what he was doing and why. But he was also running through the possibilities of different techniques done at different times to accomplish the same result. When I said this was all too confusing, he replied "No it's really simple. Just read the tree". Of course this simplicity came with years of experience. He then attempted to relate JBP to junipers (which he knew I understand fairly well). Treat them just like you do junipers, but the work is done only twice a year on pines. Candle pinching on pines is analogous to juniper foliage pinching, done to encourage back budding. Needle plucking/trimming is like fall/winter dead foliage removal on junipers, done to thin and refine the branching. The idea is to charge/discharge the tree's battery at the proper time to control growth and balance/redirect the tree's energy. This is obviously an oversimplification, but that's the best I can explain it.

So I too have come to the conclusion that it's best to concentrate on a few species to learn to "read the tree". At the moment, developing juniper (procumbens & shimpaku), bald cypress, pine (jbp & native shortleaf & loblolly) and elm (american & chinese) are my main focus. Hopefully, what's learned from these can be applied to other trees.

David

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