Shohin Black Pine

bonsaial1

I found this monster black pine at the local nursery. It had a 2 inch trunk and stood about 5 feet tall. It hjad one thing going for it, it had this branch of foliage at the base of the trunk. I bought the tree and took it home and choped the whole top off. All I had left was this stub and the one branch of needles. I wired it for shape and carved the stub a little. I will probably take the jin down to the base of the branch where it emerges from the trunk. Tilt the tree to the left and change the planting angle. That will be next year. I figure it will be in the training pot at least five years. I will repot it next year into better soil and prune the roots to fit the eventual pot size. The tree at this point is a mass of new buds from the massive chop that I did. It even budded from old wood where there were no needles. I have not seen this too often. Ripsgreentree has walked by this tree many times and grabbed it by the trunk just about at the place where I chopped it and said:, "Grey Anderson,(the owner of the nursery) This is the tree". Now I own it and that is the tree.


Bonsaial

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Whimsical

Nice vision.
One possible future I could see for this tree if I owned it is:
If the branch/new trunk can still be worked, intricately carving out the old trunk, and then carving a groove up the back of the old trunk and creating a self contained tanuki style.
Certainly a nice treein a couple years either way.
Nice.

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bonsaial1

Here's a recent pic of the little tree with this years candles open. I will prune the tree hard in about 30 days. This will induce a flush of new candles. I will keep only 2 on each tip, and the needles will shorten.

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Carl_Bergstrom

Wow! This one will be a gem in a very few years! Keep us updated with pictures. I like it!

One question - is the photo taken from what you plan as the future front?

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Adam

Your pine looks as if it is coming along nice. I cant wait to see it it in a couple years. If you would post a pic in 2 or 3 years. Anyway nice work Al.

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K.A. Rutledge

Hi Al,

You wrote:
"Here's a recent pic of the little tree with this years candles open. I will prune the tree hard in about 30 days. This will induce a flush of new candles. I will keep only 2 on each tip, and the needles will shorten."
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If I understand correctly that this tree was cut down and wired this year, if you do what you mention above, you will have a dead pine in about 2 - 3 months (max). With such drastic work having been done (already too much at one time for a black pine), it needs to be left to grow freely for at least a full year.

Good luck!

Kind regards,
Andy Rutledge
zone 8, Texas

bonsaial1

Hi Andy, it's nice to see you peek in every once and awhile. I guess I must go into more detail to let you understand my reasoning. I have bought 2-3 of these pines and cut the back hard twice within a 1 year period. They have always rewarded me with a flush of new buds. the tree was so large to begin with, ( 5 feet tall) that the engine beneath the soil will take some beating. In detail what I will do is not prune the entire tree but selectivly prune 2 potential leaders. I need to induce a bud or two lower on a leader type branch, so as to grow a sacrifice leader to add taper to the tree. The huge jin on the left of the tree was left there so the trunk would not dry out till I new the top would live. Once I induce some taper into the meager trunk that supports the branches, I will cut off the sacrifice branch, and probably start training the tree into a more horizontal shape. The picture I have included is something like I would like to see. Thanks for the warning, trust me I will go slow. This whole tree is being trained on one branch the size of a pencil.

Best regards, Al Keppler

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bonsaial1

I trimmed the needles. The needles were about 4 inches long. I did not prune in July for a second growth of buds, but the stupid tree is pushing them anyway, go figure. The branches are filling in better that I hoped for.

Attached Images

pinetrimmed.jpg (56.1 KB, 611 views)

TreeBay

I saw this thread come up in Related Threads and meant to ask you how this one is doing. Looks like it's going exactly as planned!

Congratulations,

Matt

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