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collected ponderosa pine #1

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Post  Kevin S - Wisco Bonsai Fri Nov 06, 2015 6:35 pm

i have acquired a couplafew ponderosa pines over the past year or so and have only been growing them... all were collected by andy smith and i was fortunate enough to acquire them from a few different sources at reasonable premiums...

this one i have had the longest and have therefore studied the longest...

next weekend at the november arbor arts milwaukee work session i will be taking a crack at styling it...
it will be my first real attempt at styling some really really good material, pretty much from scratch
(this one may have been styled a little bit years ago but if so, it shows no real signs of it)

it will involve some branch removal, raffia wrapping and wiring branches into position...
and if time allows, some deadwood work...

any ways, yesterday i did some preliminary, minor needle work and so i thought i would share some images of how it looks right now, before any styling has been done...

all four sides:

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040015

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040016

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040017

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040018


and for the trunk junkies out there:

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040019

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040020

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040021

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040022

and one in the late day light

collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb040023


i dont mind admitting that i am going into this with no small amount of trepidation...
dont wanna screw up good material  Wink
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Post  Richard S Fri Nov 06, 2015 6:44 pm

Beautiful trunk!

I know absolutely nothing about developing/styling pines so I wont offer an opinion on what you should do with it but please do keep this thread (and your Mugo thread) updated as the tree progresses.

Cheers

Richard
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Post  Kevin S - Wisco Bonsai Sat Nov 07, 2015 2:12 pm

will do...

an update on this one may follow after next weekend...
the mugo, not so soon...
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Post  LanceMac10 Sat Nov 07, 2015 4:51 pm

Interesting tree, Kevin....killa' bark, thats for sure!
Super curious as to your vision of the tree long term.

Maybe more curious, too....as to the style, school, seizure, wordy speil, random trunk splitting... Razz Razz Razz

Urinal Cake ?!?! No

Seriously, not very familiar with these Pines, but I hope you have succes!!
The list of your toolkit sounds like a who's who of tree husbandry S&M !! drunken

To the future!!!
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Post  Kevin S - Wisco Bonsai Sat Nov 07, 2015 5:45 pm

LanceMac10 wrote:Super curious as to your vision of the tree long term.

that will be easier to show than type, after next weekend

LanceMac10 wrote:Maybe more curious, too....as to the style, school, seizure, wordy speil, random trunk splitting... Razz Razz Razz
Urinal Cake ?!?! No

huh ???

LanceMac10 wrote:The list of your toolkit sounds like a who's who of tree husbandry S&M !! drunken

again, huh ???

sorry man but you lost me there... scratch

i will re-read it later after i have had a couplafew... drunken
should be clear then Wink
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Post  JimLewis Sun Nov 08, 2015 2:24 pm

I'll be MOST interested in what you can do about those needles.
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Post  LanceMac10 Sun Nov 08, 2015 3:49 pm

Messin' witjah'.....

Just referencing the recent spasm of wordy posts about style and what have you...what term would the intelligencia use for the dude and his "style" that coexists with containerized plants, spending any and all spare time tending to their needs while sharing this experience with my young kin'? Trying to pass it along, that's what I'm thinking to myself. I'm having trouble expressing myself so I'll just leave it hanging.... scratch

Urinal Cake? Yeah, confusing...justalkinbout folks wanna keep icin' da cake. How many times do people have to keep pile-ing on until you realize, hey, ok, this is a birthday cake, time to stop (here; renaming) the cake? Well, unless you like the "complexity" of figuring out ten layers of "frosting".

Apologies to you tree, it was just an innocent bystander here.... lol!

When I hear someone refer to raffia, I envision tons of wire, jacks, root spliters, black electric tape and gag harnesses... cherry

M ost of your foliage is after that straight, taperless section, topped with deadwood. I would think you would have something planned for that area? Just was an area that looked to be a bit....uummm....louder than it should be...ya' know...?

And Jim maybe onto something about needle size here. How much can these needles be reduced? That should be part of the design plan, no?

This is a cool tree, bro...and I know it's in the hands of Allstate..oops, I meant to say, ArborArts....uh, state.... drunken clown

I imagine this has just confused you further....hihihihihi... flutter eyelashes Beaurangel

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Post  JimLewis Sun Nov 08, 2015 4:27 pm

And Jim maybe onto something about needle size here. How much can these needles be reduced? That should be part of the design plan, no?

Yes.  Needle length is why I doubt these will ever rank too high in the hierarchy of great bonsai species, despite current trend.

They almost have to be massive bonsai, and if you have to have trees that large why bother doing bonsai?
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Post  Kevin S - Wisco Bonsai Sun Nov 08, 2015 5:06 pm

NOW i gottcha lance Laughing
(and when you write hihihih i have to double check that i am not reading an andre post Wink )

i can dig what you mean about all the apparatus, but the raffia will of course just protect all that killer bark from the simple application of wire...

the needle length of pondos is what first turned me off to them, but i have begun to accept that is just one part of a great tree... but over time they can be reduced and that is what i will concentrate on once i get the branches and the basic style set next weekend...

and it should be needleless to say that small tortured pondos in the wild do not undergo needle reduction Wink
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Post  Leo Schordje Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:29 am

Did you pick up Larry Jackal's Ponderosa Bonsai book? If not, you need to, still available at Stone Lantern.

I'll bring my copy Sunday, there is a technique in there you need to look at.

I want to see it live next week. Not sure what I would do with it if it were mine just from photos.
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Post  Kevin S - Wisco Bonsai Wed Nov 11, 2015 12:11 pm

yep - i bought his book at your recommendation when i got that first pondo...

no worries about it living...
what i want to do is mainly work with what it is and so i dont believe it will involve drastic work...
and i believe only 2-3 non-main branches will be removed.
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Post  Kevin S - Wisco Bonsai Wed Nov 18, 2015 12:12 am

here it is mostly done for now... still some deadwood work and minor branch tweaking to do, but i got done what i wanted to get done on the day i wanted to get it done and it was moved along in the direction i envisioned so i am happy for now...

my goal was to get all the foliage moved to the left of the trunk and mostly below the horizontalish upper branch except for an apical point

this picture was taken from a bit left of the best viewing angle
will post more after the rest of the work


collected ponderosa pine #1 Pb150010


couple more pics here, but mostly just of the wrestling match shot by brian "da chopper'

http://arborartscollective.blogspot.com/2015/11/collected-ponderosa-pine-work-at-aac.html
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Post  LanceMac10 Wed Nov 18, 2015 12:24 am

A1 steaksauce on a burger, baby!!!

If you can reduce the needles juusssttt a little bit, 'twill be most splendid!!

Certainly in the "flesh", as it were, it's TWICE as handsome!!

I dub the..."Reel around the fountain"

drunken Dance
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Post  Kevin S - Wisco Bonsai Wed Nov 18, 2015 12:25 pm

thanks lance... yep - time to get my schoolin' on needle reduction
apart from just cutting them in half as i have seen done Rolling Eyes

reportedly, this one was just a pine cone landing in a mountain crevice around the time of the great depression,
so a bunchafew more years aint nothing in the grand scheme of schemes.
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Post  Leo Schordje Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:57 pm

Seeing it in person, I really liked it. Didn't get much of a chance to talk with you about it. Looking good.

A couple thoughts. You did a lot of cranking around on the branches before you settled on the correct bends and the way to bend them. This constitutes "major work" for the tree. The repeated flexing can loosen or trear the cambium under the bark, in the future, try to bend the branch just once or twice. I would put off doing any additional work, especially anything that re-bends any of the branches, also anything that vibrates the trunk, or otherwise might flex the trunk and cause it to shift in the pot. Likely a number of fine roots were broken just from the work you did Sunday. The tree should be allowed to grow without major disturbance for a season. Next fall would be the next time to do something with it. Using power tools on the deadwood will vibrate the trunk and risk potentially breaking more fine feeder roots. Take it easy with this old guy until end of next summer. At least that is what I would do if it were mine.

Needle reduction. In ponderosa I think the best needle reduction is gotten when you increase ramification. You grow it into shorter needles. JBP techniques will not work on Ponderosa. As pointed out before cutting needles short is not a good option. Also, for the time being you want growth, I would not remove too many needles, they power the tree. Remove too much and growth will be weak and stall. To get ramification, you need vigor. At least that's my 2 cents. Follow Steve's advice he has owned Ponderosa pines for many years longer than I have.

Nice tree, nice bark on the trunk. I like it.
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Post  Kevin S - Wisco Bonsai Thu Nov 19, 2015 6:23 pm

thanks for the input my man !

the "wrestling match" may have looked worse than it was... i was conscientiously being careful with my bends and having gone in with a pre-thought out plan, i dont believe i did much in the way of mind-changing and re-bending, but perhaps there was some...

i did whatever needle work i planned to do a couplafew weeks ago, so no more of that will be done this year.

i appreciate the sage advice, especially regarding deadwood work as i had not considered the vibratory effect on fine feeder roots after stressing the tree as i did.

if i do any deadwood work this year, it will be gentle and by hand... mainly i just need to heat, twist and reposition one of the fresh jins before it becomes too dried out, and the rest can wait.

thanks again !
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