Japanese Black Pine

matsu

Sorry for being so late in responding. I appreciate all your kind remarks. I am very proud of this tree but can't claim full credit for its development. I aquired it last year. I've been working with black pine for about 15 years now and have 12 in my collection (5 of which are cork bark). Black pine make up the largest part of my collection. I'll post some pictures of some other trees (including cork barks) here or on the Bonsai Show page soon.

In response to your questions, from what I've been able to piece together from studying the tree, I estimate that the tree is approximately 40+ years old (circa 1960). It likely started its life in the field and was developed in the ground on and off for a number of years to develop trunk caliper and the nebari. It was likely lifted from the field periodically (every 3 years?) and pot trained for a couple of years to work on the roots and strengthen and refine the primary branching. You have to be careful with field growing pine to maintain the primary branches you want to retain. These primary branches can weaken significantly or die while allowing sacrafice branches to grow in the ground. The alternative is to graft new branches on the trunk when it is lifted from the field. While grafting onto existing branches isn't difficult, I find trying to graft onto trunks with thick bark very difficult and personally have a low success rate. Once the desired trunk size was reached, it was pot trained to further refine the design and develop tertiary ramification and shorten the needles. I repotted the tree this past spring to get it into a soil mix more favorable to my area (Tx gulf coast). The tree was in a fairly fine mix of decomposed granite and sand (which is preferable for developing refined growth), but which holds too much moisture in my area. I have to use a more free draining mix. I estimate that it had been about 7 or 8 years since its last repotting and believe it had been repotted at least once before that. Assuming that to be the case I estimate that it had been initially pulled from the field somewhere around 1985 to 1990.

So far this year I've needle pulled to balance strength and been fertilizing it well (monthly organic cakes and weekly fish emulsion). By the end of June or first week in July I'll candle prune this years growth to further balance the strength, and to develop further ramification and short needles.

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Regards, Paul