Recently acquired Japanese Black Pine. My goal is to thicken the trunk. I noticed many areas with many branches from the same junction (whorls) and quite a few branches with long internodes. What should my first course of action be in the spring, summer and fall?
Hi @Cjlopez4
I would feed it and pot it on if you want a thicker trunk. Also start thinking about sacrificial branches and pruning to keep the lower branches strong after growth has hardened
I’m in zone 9, can I Repot now middle of spring or wait until next February?
If so, I would suggest just moving it into bigger container/ground without removing any soil and definitely not roots.
Length of those candles are insane! Haha
Yes @CoffeeCherry,
Pot on, not repot.
If you want to thicken the trunk, put it in the ground in a Rootmaker bag.
Listen to the Asymmetry podcast with Telperion farms. It will give you and idea on how, and the time it takes to develop thick trunk. 
Just listened to the Podcast, it was great.
I too recommend putting it in the ground.
Username checks out 
Not going to lie, I live for this moment in the forum 
The podcast mentions placing in a root control bag and then in the ground. Where do I find the root control bag?
These are the guys telperion uses. https://treebag.com/root-control-bag/
They were SOOO nice to me on the phone. Answered all my questions and all. Telperion uses 10" bags. I feel those are a touch small for saplings so I bought 12". If you have more established trees you want to ground grow you may want 14", 16" or 18".
They are sold in quantities of 10. The 10" were about $2-3 each. Each size up goes up in a price by a bit, but I forget how much.
Ignore the online brochure that says you have to order by the case, they will sell and are VERY happy to sell in quantities of 10.
I also called Telperion and they said they plant on a root stopping disc within the bag to keep that flat bass. Anything works, weed mat, wood, dish, frisbee I found 6" hexagon tiles at lowes for $2 each and put mine on those. So the initial rootball will be flat then it will expand outwards and eventually grown down into the rest of the bag that way. I’ve grown on tile in my field with great success, but the rootbags (new for me this year) will be a welcome addition. Digging up non rootbagged trees can be a bit of work. I have 60 trees in the ground (and counting) so it’s a lot of work every year and I want to get it all switched over to rootbags in the coming years.
I should change my name to DrownTheBaldies
Can you link me to some of your baldie photos? I haven’t had a chance to see too many go past the sapling stage and would love to see what’s possible.
