by Zach Smith | Oct 3, 2015 | Care, Pines, Potting, Pruning, Wiring
You’ve seen this loblolly pine, Pinus taeda, before. I first potted it in 2013 when I started working with the species. As you may recall, I’ve noted before that I’ve never had any luck with Japanese black pines, despite the fact that they seem very well suited to the climate of the Deep South. I love pine bonsai, so I figured that if I couldn’t grow loblolly pine then it must surely be me and I’d need to give up forever. So with a few specimens in hand that I’d gotten back in 2012 I went to hacking and wiring and in the case of this tree, potting. It was a pleasant surprise to me that loblollies seem to really respond well to bonsai techniques.
This is a photo I took of this specimen in October of 2014. What I saw here was a tall pine with its foliage mostly concentrated in the upper reaches of the tree. So I wired some movement into the new apex and wired the branches downward, giving them a trim in the process to bring them closer to the trunk.
Here’s a shot from today. You can see the development of the tree in the past year. I let a leader run in the apex to thicken it so it can support the branching I need. I’ve pinched the growth in the branching along the trunk in order to keep it from getting too rangy. I want this tree to give the appearance of a classic tall pine. To do this, I can’t let the branches get too long.
You can see in this photo that I wired the tree to the pot so it wouldn’t tip over. I cut the roots back hard when I potted the tree. In the process, I learned that the root system wasn’t as stable as I’d like. So the wire was a good way to keep the tree upright until the roots got stronger.
In this photo I’ve removed the guy wire – the roots are nice and strong now – and also pruned back the apex. Now I’ve got the profile of this tree back where I want it. It looks more believable.
The left-hand branch remains overly long and will need to be brought back in next year. I have to be careful when I do this. There’s a small bud halfway back on the branch, but I can’t cut to it until next spring after the candles begin to extend. Otherwise I risk the entire branch.
Of course, in studying this tree it occurs to me that the left-hand branch may need to come off altogether. I’ll probably wait and see how it looks once I’ve chased it back. If that doesn’t make the tree look right, then I can take the branch off.
Finally, I put some wire on one of the smaller branchlets on the lowest right-hand branch. I think this makes the silhouette look much better.
I refrained from doing an excessive amount of pruning on this tree in 2015, as I needed the branches to gain strength. It’s for this reason the needles are a bit long. Loblolly has at least three rounds of growth in each season, which allows you to get must faster ramification and needle length reduction. I expect to be able to put some effort into these techniques in 2016.
by Zach Smith | Aug 1, 2015 | Care, Pines, Pruning, Wiring
I’ve been working on this nice piece of loblolly pine stock for a while now. In the last round of pruning, wiring and shaping, I wired up a new leader in order to continue building taper into the crown. I’ve left the tree alone for a while, but now I can’t put off the next step in its development any longer. Here’s why:
If you look closely, you can see the wire is biting into the new leader that began as a thin side branch a few months ago. You can see that wiring the side branch upward prompted rapid growth. Pines are no different than most tree species; they want to get as tall as they can, so in order to do this the topmost shoot (or a shoot the bonsai artist wires up) grows very quickly.
After removing the wire from the strong leader, I cut it off without hesitation. This is one of the challenges faced by the beginner and sometimes the intermediate bonsai artist as well. Cutting back a trunk to build or improve taper, and cutting back branches to build or improve taper, can be a frightening prospect. This is especially true if you’ve worked long and hard to develop part of your tree that you now know has to come off. But I promise you, if you take the plunge you’ll be rewarded. Yes, it’s costly in terms of time. But you don’t want to find yourself looking at a tree you’ve developed for five years and realize all the work you’ve done has to be chopped off in order to make your bonsai look right. It’ll bug you until you do something about it.
In the case of this tree, a shoot I’d wired as a side branch a couple of months ago is in just the right spot. It only needs to be pointed upward and bent a little bit to make it consistent with the existing trunk movement.
Here’s the result. I have my new leader in position and won’t trim the tree any more in 2015. It’ll set dormant candles as fall approaches for spring 2016.
The great news here is I’ve successfully gotten two rounds of development in the current growing season, which will certainly shorten the process of making it into a fine pine bonsai. In fact, next year this tree can go into its first bonsai pot.
If you compare this photo with the first one above, you’ll notice I’ve done some work on the thicker, first three branches in the lower part of the tree. I’m working them back toward the trunk, all the while improving their taper so they properly reflect the taper of the trunk when this bonsai is “finished.”
Technically, this tree has the height and mostly the shape of its finished self. The silhouette is just about right. The crown needs to fill in, and I need to build ramification in the branches. I’m betting that two years will be enough time to get this done.
by Zach Smith | Jan 24, 2015 | Care, Pines, Wiring
I started working on this loblolly pine, Pinus taeda, last year. If you look closely you can see where I cut the original trunk to a new leader to increase taper and make the tree more compact.
In this photo the two lowest branches have been wired (for the first time). One of the great features of pines is the flexibility of their branches, which means you can wire and shape them even when they get relatively thick. Now, every good feature of a tree seems to always come with a not-so-good feature, and in this case the long-lived flexibility of pine means you have to re-wire the branches over time until they stay permanently where you want them.
Now I’ve put a little movement into the first two branches. Branch movement should reflect trunk movement, for the most part.
Pines are a bit tricky to wire because of the needles. It takes a great deal of care to not trap an excessive number of needles beneath your wire. You always lose some this way, however. The good news is, unless you damage the base of the fascicles new buds will always pop up and replace what you lose.
Next, that big long straight leader is cut (to a spot where I have two shoots). In a nutshell, this is the process for building a bonsai as it grows. It’s all about cutting the tree back, whether that means trunk or branches. This builds taper and compactness.
Finally, I’ve wired and shaped the number one back branch and new leader. Notice that I took the apical shoot on the left-hand side to wire up. This continues the gentle movement of the trunk.
So, what are the next steps with this specimen? In this growing season, that shoot I wired up is going to literally explode in size as the tree does its best to get taller. I’ll let this happen to only a limited extent; otherwise, the taper I’ve established is going to be ruined. so the growth of the apex must be carefully managed.
While this is going on, I’ll cut back the lower branches in order to encourage budding nearer the trunk. Not all the way in, mind you, that would harm the structural appearance, but to the right extent. Here’s a good rule of thumb: since the trunk of a typical informal upright bonsai is bare for the first third of its distance from the soil surface, each branch should be bare for roughly a third of its distance from the trunk. This allows you to see into the structure, which is a key factor in making the bonsai look right. As with deciduous trees, evergreens should be structured with this principle in mind.
This tree is available at our Pine Bonsai page.
Do you have any experiences with pines you’d like to share? Leave a comment below.
