First black pine

Design
1

Hey everyone, hope everyone is having a good day in the bonsai world. I would appreciate a critique on this tree.
Thank you,
Ro

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The positives - It looks healthy, there is some taper and movement in the trunk, and there are quite a few branches.
The negatives - The branches are all whorls of 3 or more and there is a long section between the first two whorls.
Key Need - Reduce the branch whorls to a single branch by removing one per year. This is to prevent swelling at the whorl. Already seeing a little.
Ideas:

  1. Take off the lower branches and build the tree using upper branches. Try to get some more movement into the trunk as this is done. Would require rebar for the lower trunk. This will yield a taller more elegant bonsai in a few years.
  2. Remove everything above the lower branches (leave long stub to start). Bend one of the branches up to be a new leader (use the stub to help pull it up) and keep one as a first branch. Don’t remove the other branch until next year to maintain that side of the tree. This will create a shorter, more powerful tree, but will take longer since the large cut will have to heal over several years.

In both cases you are moving most of the branches you are keeping into early refinement fairly quickly by either candle breaking to limit elongation or full candle pruning if the tree is really strong.

I have taken both approaches with Scots pine and there are benefits of both.

Marty

1 Like
3

Thank you, Marty, for your feedback. You mentioned, that I should remove the lower branches. Also you said one branch a year. So should I remove just one of the lower branches this year and wait for the other. I do apologize for my ignorance.

4

It is best to remove the branches one at a time so the tree can start to heal the cut before the next branch is removed. That allows the tree to adjust the sap flow path and better handle removal of the next branch. Crataegus Bonsai just had a blog where they restyled a similar, but denser tree and they cut the large lower branch back to just a few shoots with the plan to remove it later this year. That was to prevent the roots that were supplying that branch from dying - once again allowing sap rerouting.