A year's work

bwaynef

Just an update for my records. Comments welcome.

BLC JBP:
This tree's history is pretty well documented here. (In brief, its a workshop tree I got in June at the Bonsai Learning Center.) I plucked some needles around august (I may've given more specific dates in my journal. I don't recall) and even decandled a few long candles.

I need to work on ramification and, by extension, needle reduction. Overall, I think its grown pretty well, though a little faster than I'd expected as a few wire scars will attest. The foliage will hide said scars until they heal.. I'll probably remove the guy wires soon.

Crape1:
I pretty much let this one run rampant this year. I did remove the flowers as quickly as I could to put most of its energy into growth (and healing wounds). Theres a pretty big scar at the back that needs some carving work to allow to heal. Thats coming this winter.

I let it dry out (along with a few others) about 2 weeks ago and it dropped most of its leaves. I put it on my porch to keep the frosts off it, but let it remain in the cold. The leaves you see are the result of ...drying out and pretty cold temps, and being in the shade. Not the best situation but I'm doing the best I can NOW.

My apologies for cutting off the top of this one in the photo. 70lb lab, no tripod, and squatting make for a poor photography environment.

*This is my only tree in a proper bonsai pot.*

Boxwood1:
I'm not sure if I've ever posted this one. Its fairly homely but I see potential there. Its being grown, for better or worse, in the traditional pine tree informal upright style. I'm working on ramification, contemplating wiring, contemplating guy wiring it. Its mostly 2-d right now. It could use some back branching and theres one branch that popped very opportunely. The nebari is pretty good, but it could use some work too. I know the pot's horrible. It was about the size I wanted (overpotting) and I don't really care about the color of the pot when I'm growing it out.


I've a few others I'd like to post, but I need to take their pics as I was running out of daylight and didn't want to rely on work lights, reflectors, and flash to get a decent picture.

Attached Images

	blc_jbp-oct06_ed.JPG (72.7 KB, 246 views)
	crape1_oct06.JPG (71.8 KB, 224 views)
	boxwood1_oct06.JPG (72.3 KB, 214 views)

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zen

These ar eall three very nice. I especially like the pine and crepe, the pine styling is quite nice how the back branch foliage really plays backdrop to the trunk, and the trunk of the crepe is really stunning, just keep working those tertiary branches and this will be a show stopper for sure. Thanks for sharing some of your trees with us man.
Jeremy M.C.

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bonsaikc

Do you have a training plan set out for the pine? What is your schedule for next year with the tree?

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Chris Johnston
Sashi-no-eda.blogspot.com

Kansas City Area Workshops 2008

bwaynef

I'm in the middle of a slight emergency at work, but apparently the engineers @ cisco don't feel the same, so while I wait on them, I'll tend to this thread.

As for next year, I'll probably be doing a lot of what I did this year. Around june, start the staggered candling schedule for the 1st 3 weeks of june. Then needle pluck in fall, and possibly candle again. (<-- I know its not recommended, but I've had pretty good luck doing a 2nd decandling (all at once) in early Sept.)

I'll be moving it to a pond basket late winter and starting an organic fertilizer regimen thereafter.

Let me know what you think. I'm open.

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guercio

I'm sorry , it's a pinus tumbergji or a pinus pinaster?
is red in to the line in the cortex?
thank's

bwaynef

Sorry, I denoted it as BLC JBP. I don't usually get much response so I didn't provide a "key". Its a Japanese Black Pine (P. thunbergii) from the Bonsai Learning Center (BLC).

I'm glad to have some inter-continental input, but I apologize for not being able to decipher the last question. Is there any way you could rephrase it?

Thank you.

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Graydon

I'm really digging the crape. I have despised them as landscape plantings for so long I refused to even look at them in bonsai. Trees like yours are bringing me back around. Perhaps I will try one in a year or so. A somewhat bonsai nursery I frequent just picked up a dozen older abused crapes in 1 gallon cans, all root-bound with great nebari starts. We chopped them back to stumps and put them on the bench for winter. I'm interested to see what happens next. If I get one to work on I will need to hide it so my neighbor does not come over and "top" it like he does the crapes growing in his yard...

I am a huge pine lover, in fact I am out of control (too many and not enough bench). I think you are headed in a good direction with yours, however in my opinion the trunk looks a little anorexic or on the thin side based on the height and branch placement. I don't know where you are headed with this one but you may never see a big and bulky trunk. I went back and looked at the first post you did with the pine and you have made great progress based on those photos. It's filling in very nice. It just will never fatten up. Once the pads develop and you continue down the path of ramification I think the foliage mass will dwarf the trunk size.

Pond basket, good fast draining soil and organics will help but that will accelerate growth. That growth push is a contradiction of what you are doing when you begin the ramification process and start decandling to push dormant buds for finer growth. Once I set the branches I move the tree to a final bonsai pot for the ramification stages.

It's taken me a while to wrap my head around the fat trunk concept on pines, allowing multiple branches to grow out of control while others are pinched or pruned back to keep them in check. Part of that problem is I started working on pines before I really understood how they grow. I have several on my benches like yours that I set final branches too soon. This spring I am going to try something on one - I will allow a terminal bud at the very end of each branch to grow and pinch the others. In the fall I will not cut this candle as it will become a sacrifice branch extension. My hopes are that is I can do this on each branch as well as on an extra branch near the apex I may be able to put on some girth in a few years. If it works I will cut all of them off when I reach a desired size. I am sure I will need to rework the foliage pads to hide the cuts on the ends of the branches.

Does any of this dribble make sense? I'm not saying it's not a nice tree, it is and has a great form and good branch placement. It's just in a few years you will not have the chance to go back and fatten it up.

I attached a photo that Steve Pilacik sent me of some little pines he is working on. Notice that most of them have a great big sacrifice branch out of the top but they are in small pots. Chop the sacrifice this spring and begin the ramification.

Attached Images

DSC00013.jpg (35.4 KB, 85 views)

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bwaynef

I'm surprised by the feedback I'm receiving on the crape. The opinions stated herein haven't changed my opinion of it yet though. It certainly needs work, and possibly some drastic work. I'm contemplating still.

As for the anorexic pine, I agree that this isn't the typical masculine jbp. The branches just aren't there to fatten it up either. I've considered letting those main branches have an "escape" section to thicken the trunk a little, but I doubt very seriously that it'd make much difference (though its still a possibility).

I find its shape and size pretty pleasing. Granted some more girth would only help, but being realistic, theres not a lot more growth that I can expect from this tree without getting lucky with some buds popping pretty low on the trunk. Now, had the branch that was growing at the bottom right of the trunk been there when I got this tree ...it would've been the perfect trunk-thickening branch. (You can make out where the scar hasn't healed yet.)

I think I'm stuck playing the hand I was dealt.

As for the technique you mention, and S. Pilacik uses (who apparently gives a workshop yearly <10 miles from my house....) I'll be using it on another jbp whose trunk has some potential to thicken up still.


(Stupid time change: it'll probably be the weekend before I have daylight enough for any more pics.)

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bwaynef

I shot this pic for a friend one morning before going to work. It was early so my apologies for the background. This was in the spring. You can see that not all of the branches had leafed out yet.

Attached Images

crape_spring06.JPG (72.4 KB, 76 views)

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