BonsaiNurseryman

Art of Bonsai Project Interview

I was recently interviewed by Will Heath for the AOB Profiles section. Probably more than you ever wanted to know about me and Evergreen Gardenworks:

AOB Interview

Pines: A Followup

Recently "L" wrote me again about her Japanese Black Pine, Pinus thunbergii, that we had discussed previously here. Well, she made the big cut as you can see below and is now ready for the next step.

L:

Well, I decided that I had better get this tree cut back soon if I was going to follow your advice. It was a bit hard, since I don't have an adequate vision of where I'm heading. I can easily see that it is what I needed to do if I was to have any degree of taper in the trunk, though. What should I be doing through the coming months with the tree, Brent?  I had intended to try to follow the superfeeding schedule as outlined in one of the articles in the new pine book from Stone Lantern. I can't recall the exact name offhand. Should I seal the cut in any way, or just allow it to pitch over? I'm not really sure what else to ask about. If you have any obvious advice that I'm missing, It's always appreciated.

Thanks

L

That pot may not be big enough for the growth you need for the second phase. You should consider a training pot or planting it in the ground. Just regular feeding is going to give you all the growth you are going to need. No more pruning until mid summer, then re evaluate. It needs a growth spurt now, but some of those branches may be final candidates, so you don't want them growing wildly, but that probably won't happen this season.

There is no need to seal over the cut, just leave it open and it will dry out and die back to wherever it wants. In a year yo can go back in and carve it to the dieback area, or cut again depending on what you choose as the new leader.

It's difficult to say what is going to be the leader from the pictures, it looks like there may be more than one candidate. In fact you could let more than one grow at this point if you are also undecided. The one you choose should be based on the nebari and the best trunk angle. You should scratch away the surface soil to see what would make the best front.

You should be able to see at least one sacrifice branch. It looks like to me that the lowest branch is never going to be a potential final branch UNLESS it becomes the new trunkline, which is a distinct possibility in case of disaster or the rest of the tree just doesn't work out, or you change you mind about what you want. This is clearly a case where you let that low branch just go wild to increase the base taper, BUT at some point in year or two, you whack it hard once to try to induce back budding on the first branch section. If you can get some growth close to the trunk, then it becomes possible for a new trunkline, if you can't get it to break then it is only good for a sacrifice. This is what I was talking about in one of the earlier blog articles where the tree is very short and makes a turn into the former sacrifice. Of course, once you get bud break, then you resume wild terminal growth to thicken the trunk, but maintain the new bud break as potential branches.

I hope that you can see that recovering material like this doesn't necessarily mean that you only get a single tree, there is almost always three or four tree possibilities and there is no point in immediately limiting your choices. Invariably you later wish you had another option. In most cases, keeping the options doesn't mean compromising your prime design, often it enhances it, but it does mean that the 'tree' is going to only exist in your head for awhile while the real tree just looks messy. This is one of Walter Pall's great points: Trees are going to look a lot worse before they look better.

Pines: Where It Begins

My apologies for taking six weeks to make another posting. It's spring! And our busiest time of the year. It is also raining endlessly. You would think that with all the rain I would have tons of time to write, but alas, I just have to don the raingear and slog it out. We have had 27 days of rain in March for a total of 14 inches, about half our annual average. So far we have had ONE sunny day in April and the forecast is for rain for another week at least.

In any case, I received my shipment of bareroot field grown Japanese Black Pines last month, a bit late, but with this weather it doesn't make a lot of difference. While I was preparing them, it dawned on me that the preparation might be of interest. I get 400 1-0 JBP seedlings every year from Brook's Tree Farm in Oregon. The 1-0 means that these are field grown seedlings one year old and never transplanted. The seed is sown directly into the ground. This method results in superb material for bonsai. They are small, and this year they are smaller than usual, but because of this, they have all their potential intact.

What potential do they have? First, they have no tap root of any consequence, making the transition to a shallow pot very easy. I use to buy 2-0 seedlings and these were quite difficult to root prune; the mortality rate was very high. These smaller seedlings have a survival rate of about 95%. The other outstanding quality of 1-0 seedlings is that the very first whorl of branches is still intact and strong. The leader is only slightly stronger than the side branches. One more year in the ground and this balance is completely upset, with the small low side branches very weak or shed altogether. The first photo shows how the seedlings look as I get them. This one has only been washed to remove the mud.

Without a strong taproot , the top lateral roots are still strong, and it takes only a light root pruning to get them in the 2 3/4 inch pots that I use. The second photo shows a pruned seedling and its pot. Note that I have pruned the top lateral roots so that they can remain horizontal. At year one, I am already starting the foundation of a good nebari. If it isn't done at this stage, the chances of ever getting an excellent nebari is slim. These tiny roots right at the base will be the beautiful spreading surface roots that you will admire twenty years from now. Also note the distance from the top roots to the lowest branches. With material like this, there is no need to go through all those fancy contortions of seedling cuttings. Field planting in full sun keeps that first internode very short. This is something that is difficult to impossible to get with container sown seedlings.

These seedlings will be root established in the pots by September of this year, and ready for sale. The majority of them will be used for graft understock. I plant all of them high in the pots so that I can get the graft right on top of the roots after removing the surface layer of soil.  About 80% of them will be large enough and strong enough for understock this year (I graft in October). The remainder will be held over to use next year.

This last photo shows 200 little seedlings all washed, pruned, and ready to pot up.