Styling a Chuhin White Pine in a Dan Barton Pot

For my personal collection I have always worked on native European trees, this is for three key reasons. First: I live in the cold wet north of England and working on local material should give me the best chance to create bonsai that will thrive and survive in my climate. Second availability of good ‘imported’ material, for sure GOOD raw material worth buying was in short supply when I started in bonsai 30 years ago, simply put the trees coming out of the far east were the runts of the litter, we got the crap that that they did not want. Thankfully that appears to have changed over the last few years as the art is in decline in Japan more material is becoming available and at the right price. Third: Most material coming from the Far East is either ‘finished’ or ‘semi-finished’ I am an artist who prefers to work with totally raw material even though it takes longer, the satisfaction is greater.

If you want to read more you can HERE

I can see why you were smitten with this tree - nice!
Todd

I can see why i was smitten by the pot

Great looking JWP Tony, needless to say

With such vigorous growth apparent, I think you could remove a heck of a lot more needles - particularly in the strong areas - to promote backbudding and in doing so, increase your options down the line.

I've had one pop at my tiddler about a month back but am planning more needle plucking if it ever stops raining.



I've been documenting my tree for about 7 years now and will put it on IBC one day.

See article here for background interest which outlines my rationale which you probably don't need

http://www.bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATJapaneseWhitePine.htm

Merry Christmas everbody btw.


Thks

TimR

hi tim,

i think you probably get far more back buds on white pines if you dont needle pluck healthy green needles. (after the neccessary initial clearing to wire the initial design if you need to) It is much better to leave all the needles in place that the tree wants to keep, especially trees like these that are in the first days of the primary styling - just clean off the yellowing ones that are mostly 3yrs old (some trees let 2yr old needles go yellow too). You find the new buds form so much better in among existing needles rather than on plucked bare branches - probably because the needles keep the sap flow spread more evenly rather than directed at the absolute tip of the branches.

the old, rather outdated info for needle plucking white pines doesnt seem to work as well as leaving more on - the key is feed the tree so well you get 3 or more buds on every terminal shoot, then select the well placed medium or weak ones to keep. Following the removal of the strong buds or candles the back buds develop, then in following years you can cut back to them and grow the branch properly from the new inner shoot if the branch has annoying bare sections that wont fill in.

a further clue if you need one is in the many pictures of jwp you can find on development and refinement nurseries, in apprentice blogs etc.....none are needle plucked like black and red pines...yet for some reason western books and articles seem to have their own version of white pine care that gets incredibly slow and rather poor visible results. I think this mis-information results in so many weakened and poor leggy white pines everywhere.

just an alternative view ,

Marcus

Hi Marcus,

Opening a debate on JWP care on this thread is probably unfair to Tony .

My own research shows it to be quite a contentious topic.

I also feel that well developed trees like Tony's require a different regime than trees in development such as mine.

The method I employ , albeit gleaned 2nd hand, has been producing back buds on bare wood regularly which is what I am after rather than buds in already over-developed areas but I take what you say on board.

thks

TimR

powerful tree tony, looking good, thanks for sharing pics and story