Hi, I picked up a Scott’s Pine from a nursary here in the UK that was too cheap to leave. It has two trunks, but the main larger trunk has serious inverse taper from the whorls. I have removed some branches already.
My question is, should I chop the main trunk and continue with the smaller as the new leader, possibly Jin the chop, allowing me to add movement to the smaller trunk before it gets too large to bend. Or should I work to reduce the inverse taper and keep it as dual trunk or remove the smaller.
Any advice is welcomed as I’m still a beginner. Photos attached
I will lead with “Strength of pines is on its roots”.
With that said these are the questions I’d be thinking about to make an informed decision.
Are you happy with the girth of the trunk?
When do you plan to repot it?
Can you get it into an appropriate size bonsai container during the report or will there be an intermediate container and it will take 2 repots to get into a bonsai container?
Either way I would slowly kill off the main leader even though it would probably be fine to remove in one go. Bring it down to the first whirl. Unless your unhappy with the girth of the trunk. Then I would just run it like a sacrificial branch and leave everything on it. I personally wouldn’t actually try to style it at this point but just remove unnecessary flaws, bring the main trunk down. That will probably do a decent job of balancing out the overly strong needle mass but preserving enough to drive a fast recovery from the repot. I wouldn’t wire anything, I am not a fan of wiring some branches unless your intentionally trying to make it weaker. Hopefully this helps some
I plan on it taking two repots to get it into a bonsai container. The first being early next year into an intermediate pot, clean up the exterior roots and in good soil. The second repot maybe two years later to get the root-ball into good soil, and into a bonsai container.
I’ll take your advice on slowly reducing the main trunk to help with the repot stress. I would prefer the trunk to be thicker, however, running the main trunk as a sacrifice branch, would it slow down the thickening of the secondary trunk which I plan on keeping? I know you said you would hold off on styling, but would you put any movement into the smaller teunk before it thickens?
Great question! Personally, I’d probably add some movement now—mainly for structural purposes. If wire alone can’t get the bend, a wedge cut might be the long-term option.
Yes, it will reduce strength, but if you’re already planning to bring the main trunk down to the mentioned height (removing apical dominance), the secondary trunk should take over as the strongest part of the tree. That makes wiring this section easier to justify, even though wiring always compromises water and nutrient flow to some degree.
I’m not an expert, just someone trying to apply horticultural logic to these kinds of nuances. There are people here who’ve forgotten more than I know, so if I’m off base, please speak up—for the tree’s sake. I don’t see it as especially risky, but I do try to respect that bonsai are complex adaptive systems, and by definition, unpredictable.
Good Luck looks like a fun project.. I have some similar ones I started a few years ago and my advice is be patience ….as he says…pines are built not made.
