The fastest way to develop deciduous bonsai: Walter Pall's hedge pruning technique explained!

[Nate_Andersen]

There are several things that are off putting about the way this technique is always presented and discussed, namely:

1. “The fastest way to develop deciduous bonsai”

• As if cutting carefully and in specific places slows down the trees development and instead you need to cut aimlessly to make it “develop faster”

2. Way to get best ramification fastest

• Wait is it the best and fastest way to develop the tree or ramify it? Those two things are not the same to me and I assume it isn’t for other either. Developing is never defined in any way, but is the main description of how wonderful this technique is.

3. “This is for all trees in development, I only have trees in development” but continues to talk about all of his trees in refinement.

• Walter Pall definitely defines development different than us “Miraites” so the confusion of the terms is wildly confusing and annoying. From my understand he uses this regardless of what stage the tree is in, correct me if I’m wrong.

4. Continual referral to “The best results should speak for the technique”

• As if results aren’t insanely subjective to begin with and like seeing an online photo is enough to make that judgement. No one is measuring total forks in a ramified branch and how many years it took to get there. This also gives off the impression that there IS a best technique and it is proved by how my trees are better than yours (contrary to what Walter says and feels in the podcast) It comes off extremely arrogant.

5. The feeling that someone is always trying to prove that this should be used more.

• If it works for you just use it and stop trying to get everyone else to use it and be happy that you’re trees will develop (or refine…) better and faster than everyone else. If someone asks share it.

6. Somehow the entire technique is almost never fully discussed

• Walter consistently mentions how defoliation on the strong trees happens before the second “hedging” of the branches. I think this does a lot to open up light into the interior to allow for back budding on the inner branches. This wouldn’t happen easily if you don’t defoliate.

7. Walter does this because he has so many trees and it is faster

• He explicitly states so many times that he doesn’t do it because it is faster, regardless of the fact that is it faster and easier to do with many trees.

All that said, I plan to use this on a few trees to see how it goes and contrast it to what I’d do from my personal feelings of bonsai practice.

Sidenotes:
@Ralph Walter does mention saying that is works well for Acer Campestre on a video I watched.

@antelion Everything Walter does seems to be about clickbaity/controversial stuff, so agreed on the above post. Summer repotting, summer/fall collecting, hedge pruning, etc.

@rafi About your explanation, yes but no. He studied there for 9 years, but has practiced for longer than that. If your PhD students got a PhD and worked/studied for 11 years in several other fields not specific to your research group your statement becomes irrelevant. He isn’t saying this fresh off his apprenticeship.

Not to sound attacking in any way, but you follow up with statements that contradict what you’re saying about his opinion and are super subjective and judgy.

@rafi

Keep in mind that bonsai nurseries in Japan are highly specialized. Some mostly or exclusively deal with the last step in the entire chain and that is to maintain and further refine highly developed trees. I think this is the case of the nursery where Bjorn worked. (think based on what?)

Doesn’t this mean that he would have extensively focused on highly refining trees which is exactly what Walter is claiming to be so great at with this technique (getting the best ramification fastest)? This would make Bjorn’s opinion much more relevant about this rather than less relevant.

Also the fact that you have so many assumptions based on what seems like absolutely nothing, when you teach PhD students and you typically have very thought out responses with backed up research, seems like you’re taking this personally or are attacking instead, maybe I’m wrong, but I perceive it that way.

@rafi

So one has to consider, how many raw deciduous trees has he actually worked on in 9 years in Japan?

I see what you’re saying here, but we could say the exact same things about Ryan. I haven’t seen him start from a volcanic shaped trident maple and develop it, so who says he knows anything about what I’m doing?

On top of that, why don’t we consider his entire career as a bonsai professional. He started at 13 (so I’m sure he’s seen similar stuff to what we’re seeing and using) and has practiced since then. He studied bonsai for 9 years prior to becoming an apprentice.

Other things I don’t see pointed out in terms of similarity to what “we” know and practice are the following:

• He waits until the growth hardens off to prune back

• He does selective pruning to eliminate structural flaws in the fall after leaf drop (he doesn’t say it that way, but it is what he is doing)

• He abides to the idea that Ryan has said multiple times about not cutting back too far, but to prune to where you want it to be and it will eventually backbud and you can continue to select the best branching as time goes on.

[rafi]

Hi @Nate_Andersen. Ryan mentioned many times the level of specialization of different nurseries and also Bjorn himself mentioned that the nursery where he studied and worked only deals with refinement.

After the podcast I feel that there should not have been any need to further discuss this but it appears to me that the people that are opposed to this technique (and others) cannot simply say ‘ok this is an alternative technique than traditionally taught techniques’ and keep steering up and creating a controversy where there is none. As the results show (more on that later), different techniques produce equivalent results, the difference is probably from the technical abilities of the practitioner and this is not a discussion about aesthetics.

1. Regarding the HPM, you should check at least the free videos from Bonsai Empire where Walter Pall is talking about the HPM. What I am going to mention comes from one of the videos from that course but I am not sure though if it is in one of the free ones or one of the others. Walter mentions that it doesn’t matter of you cut aimlessly or carefully. In my case I chose to cut carefully. The important point about the pruning is to do it once growth has hardened off.

2. You are right that the word development is used very loosely. Walter does suggest that sections where you want thickening you can leave untouched, so I think (my own opinion), what it is meant really is development of ramification.

3/4. You are right, he does that for all his trees as far as I know. He never pinches. For sure judging a technique by its results is the ultimate manner to judge it. Now, would need an objective measure of quality, which in terms of bonsai it is personal. For sure one would be better off seeing the tree in person to apply such a measure, but each one does what one can.

5. We are all adults and bonsai is a hobby for most, use whatever technique you wish. If you’re curious to try HPM, try it on one tree and decide for yourself. It is a fact that you can get stunning deciduous trees with a number of methods, including HPM. I personally believe that HPM gets you there faster with equal quality of results.

6. There may be a feeling that HPM is never fully explaining because there isn’t much to it, it is simple. So in fact it was amply and completely explained numerous times. Here it goes one more time: 6-8 weeks after leaves emerge once they have hardened off and the tree is energy positive you prune. It doesn’t matter of you do it carefully or roughly. Do that again 6-8 weeks later. You can spare sections of the tree that need further thickening. On a very strong tree Walter says you can also totally defoliate (at the same time as thee second pruning round I believe but I am not certain) but not every other year but it is not required. In the fall a number of weeks before first frost as leaves fall you perform branch selection to prepare the tree for the next year.

7. There is definitely an aspect of practicality and that is how he stumbled into the aspect of how faster the trees develop with HPM. He mentions that once he had a number of maples of I am not mistaken, some where better than others, he left the others in the back of the garden. He was pinching the better ones but decided to hedge prune the others just to keep their growth contained. Once he looked at the back garden trees, he discovered that they had far more ramification than the carefully pinched ones and once he edited the trees (as Walter often refers to fall work), he had in his judgement better results. Unwittingly he had performed a controlled experiment.

Regarding the remaining comments:

There is no clickbait. It sounds controversial because people turn it into a controversy. Should we not know that there is an alternative to spring collection, spring repotting, pinching, if there is one that is verified to work? Late summer repotting works (my own experiments, I did about 20 last summer on different species and levels of development) - and it turns out (from my feeling from a large thread in bonsai nut) that a lot of people use it too without problems. Summer/Fall collecting is almost the norm in regions where ice/snow cover prevents spring collection, it works. Like I mentioned earlier, people who where exposed to traditional techniques and in my feeling, those that were trained to view bonsai in the same dogmatic rigid manner as Japanese culture makes bonsai training to be, are the ones creating controversy. Neither Walter Pall nor anyone who uses his method will ever tell anyone else that these are the only ways to do things.

Lastly, my point about the constrains of specialized formal education. My students with a PhD in a narrow area are certainly primed to learn other things faster than if they didn’t have a PhD but certainly if the learn these other things, it is not during their PhD. They may be or become an expert in the other subject matter but not through their PhD training. Essentially, my argument is an argument against the logical fallacy of appeal to authority that its so, so common in bonsai.

Walter asked to not try to defend him online, so I want to stress that I am not doing that. I am discussing bonsai techniques. I feel that we at the Mirai forum have a shared sense of common grounds enough that this discussion is kept civilized (The ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality is at the very core of all problems in the world if you come to think of it). Wee are all together in this and discussion breads progress. So as long as we keep this as a civilized discussion, discussion is ok for me.

[Chris]

One thing my years of internet use have taught me is, the type of response one gets to an idea or post is often driven by the way the idea or post is framed or titled. So, if you start off with a provocative statement like “The fastest way to…” or “The best way to…” or “The only way to…”, you can be sure that people are going to react in a certain way. I don’t know if the OP (@rafi) titled the post that way to intentionally provoke interest or if it was accidental, but here we are.

A more reasonable way to title this post may have been something like “Hedge Pruning: An Option for Fast Development of Deciduous Material”. This is not as confrontational as the original title, which essentially dares people to pick it apart.

Anyway, as for the method itself - based on everything I’ve seen and read and the limited experiments I’ve done in my yard, I don’t believe that it is “better” or even “faster” in any absolute sense. What I believe it does is allow a person to change how they spend their time. What do I mean by this - if you have a lot of trees and don’t have enough time to go through each multiple times during the growing season, cutting back branches individually, you can instead shear the tree to an outline and then come back at the end of the season and make branch selections. So this shifts a good amount of work from when you have less time (summer) to when you have more time (fall).

I’ve never seen Walter’s trees in person. His trees look great in photos and I would love to be able to develop some of my own to that level. I think you can get there using hedge pruning or using standard techniques, in about the same amount of time. Which you choose comes down to preference and time management during the growing season. I’m open to being proved wrong but so far, I don’t see the evidence.

[YoloCoBonsaiNut]

I find it extremely interesting that this method is described as similar to Dennis Vojtilla’s method, which is a self-proclaimed extremely slow method!! The big difference appears to be that hedge pruning lets more nodes/leaves remain during the growing season? Is that an accurate description of the difference?

I have been experimenting with light pruning of my developing deciduous, leaving 3-4 nodes to allow more energy accumulation compared to 2 nodes, while still keeping the new growth within a future silhouette and increasing ramification. Am I basically hedge pruning?

[rafi]

I think you are. The similarity to Dennis Vojtilla’s is of my own perception - I don’t anyone to assume I am claiming anyone else is suggesting that too. I might be wrong. But this similarity is as far as the pruning in energy positive state goes. I recognize that Dennis advocates pinching for refinement. And this similarity just goes to demonstrate that there is nothing controversial about HPM. Again, all in my opinion.

[Bonsai_Bentley]

One thing we haven’t mentioned is that Pall is fertilizing his trees like crazy. Basically forcing the trees to back bud and push out. With no true leader (due to removing the auxin from the tips) I’m guessing that it encourages the tree to distribute the power across the entire tree.

Anyway, does anyone have a link that thoroughly describes the technique? I have to believe that it’s a bit more nuanced than “Yo, go hack up that tree.” I want to give this a shot with one of my trees. Trying to decide which one. Probably my japanese maple that I got from a nursery.

How I discovered the hedge pruning method

[Bonsai_Bentley]

Oh man, if you wanna see a bonsai war look up this topic on Bonsai Nut and grab your .

[Ralph]

@Nate_Andersen

@Ralph Walter does mention saying that is works well for Acer Campestre on a video I watched.

@Nate_Andersen I also recall him saying it works well concerning Acer campestre before, and he at least uses HPM on his Acer campestre.

Though I’m simply saying I’ve not got the results I’m happy with using the HPM with my campestres. I’m certainly not saying it doesn’t work well for Walter / he’s not satisfied.

I can’t see myself getting the quality results I want by using HPM on my campestres.

There are factors we have to consider as well, which might make a difference. For example, the amount of nitrogen in spring fertilization or what the roots are like. My A. campestres are only a few years from wild-collected—Walter’s might be several more years in pot cultivation with more advanced rootball and therefore naturally smaller internodes and a more ramified growth pattern as a result.

@rafi

I think you are. The similarity to Dennis Vojtilla’s is of my own perception - I don’t anyone to assume I am claiming anyone else is suggesting that too. I might be wrong. But this similarity is as far as the pruning in energy positive state goes. I recognize that Dennis advocates pinching for refinement. And this similarity just goes to demonstrate that there is nothing controversial about HPM. Again, all in my opinion.

My interpretation is that HPM is actually distinctly different from Dennis Vojtilla’s method. Almost the opposite. Dennis is taking each shoot case by case and pruning right back, rather than pruning to the profile of the eventual canopy.

@Chris

A more reasonable way to title this post may have been something like “Hedge Pruning: An Option for Fast Development of Deciduous Material”. This is not as confrontational as the original title, which essentially dares people to pick it apart.

You’re probably right but, I’m not complaining , it’s a good thread with some good discussion.

[Nate_Andersen]

@rafi

Ryan mentioned many times the level of specialization of different nurseries and also Bjorn himself mentioned that the nursery where he studied and worked only deals with refinement.

This is news to me, so thanks for the reference.

@rafi

There is no clickbait. It sounds controversial because people turn it into a controversy. Should we not know that there is an alternative to spring collection, spring repotting, pinching, if there is one that is verified to work?

Clickbait definition: Clickbait is a form of false advertisement which uses hyperlink text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, with a defining characteristic of being deceptive, typically sensationalized or misleading.

The title you gave to this forum post is a literal example of how to market to “attract attention”, “entice users to follow that link and view”, which IMHO is very sensationalized and misleading (which I explain later). You may not have meant it that way, but it is what it is regardless of intentions.

@Chris

One thing my years of internet use have taught me is, the type of response one gets to an idea or post is often driven by the way the idea or post is framed or titled. So, if you start off with a provocative statement like “The fastest way to…” or “The best way to…” or “The only way to…”, you can be sure that people are going to react in a certain way. I don’t know if the OP (@rafi) titled the post that way to intentionally provoke interest or if it was accidental, but here we are.

This is exactly what I was talking about. Thanks for putting it so eloquently.

I agree we should know about something if it is an alternative. I started a massive thread to discuss Summer/Fall collecting because I want to know more about it being an alternative. This isn’t always brought up as an alternative though. There are soil mixture alternatives. The problem becomes when you tell someone they should be using another soil because it is “the best”, provides “better results”, or “develops faster” when they completely ignore so many other factors about it like climate, frequency of watering/fertilizing, availability (of materials and caretaker), frequency of repotting, individual care by owner, etc (equivalent to fall branch selection, defoliation, how often to prune, and where to prune). I feel like I’m beating a dead horse, so I’ll wrap it up.

@rafi

Regarding the HPM, you should check at least the free videos from Bonsai Empire where Walter Pall is talking about the HPM. What I am going to mention comes from one of the videos from that course but I am not sure though if it is in one of the free ones or one of the others. Walter mentions that it doesn’t matter of you cut aimlessly or carefully. In my case I chose to cut carefully. The important point about the pruning is to do it once growth has hardened off.

The HPM in general is argued over whether to prune like a hedge or to carefully prune when the only difference is speed between those two if you selectively prune in Fall. Nobody is arguing the actual point that Walter is making which is to not prune back to only 2 nodes (which would be more like Dennis Vojtilla vs Walter Pall to put it shortly) but to prune to the eventual silhouette. Ryan states this about developing the tree as well.

This doesn’t respond to it being called (by you apparently because I can’t find Walter or anyone else saying it anywhere) the fastest way to develop deciduous bonsai.

@rafi

There may be a feeling that HPM is never fully explaining because there isn’t much to it, it is simple. So in fact it was amply and completely explained numerous times. Here it goes one more time: 6-8 weeks after leaves emerge once they have hardened off and the tree is energy positive you prune. It doesn’t matter of you do it carefully or roughly. Do that again 6-8 weeks later. You can spare sections of the tree that need further thickening. On a very strong tree Walter says you can also totally defoliate (at the same time as thee second pruning round I believe but I am not certain) but not every other year but it is not required. In the fall a number of weeks before first frost as leaves fall you perform branch selection to prepare the tree for the next year.

This being called “Hedge Pruning Method” explicitly detracts from what it is trying to explain. It isn’t about HOW you prune (like a hedge or carefully), it is about WHEN (after hardening off and twice in the year) and WHERE (at the silhouette you hope to eventually have, not at the beginning of the branch) you prune.

It also gives a general impression that it is being treated like a hedge with no regards for inner branching (which is why it is so vehemently argued about IMO) which isn’t what it is, but continues to be how it is perceived.

I just thought about this for a second and realized I may have a different opinion… (this is why we discuss right?)

In terms of 100% refinement (not DEVELOPING trees) I think there is no way that the “HPM” compares to what Dennis Vojtilla does in pruning back to 1 node. I’m 1,000% with Bjorn on this about fine fine ramification does NOT happen by letting the tree grow rampant then pruning back to the silhouette. This is what happens when people “round” “crown” “pollard” and “top” trees. If that is the entire argument is about then I’m vehemently against HPM…

[Nicknjh23]

Again. No need to defend or agree. Do what you want with your trees and if it works for you then you have achieved your desired result. While I have an opinion I don’t have the personal evidence of the so called HPM. So I can’t really comment.

[Ralph]

Like @Chris, I’ve never seen any of Walter’s in person either, though I’m keen to do so and study the details close up to be able to make a more solid opinion. I agree the overall image of Walter’s trees does look fantastic in photos. But all I’ve seen are small low-resolution images taken from far enough away to get the whole tree & pot in-frame.

If anyone has any close up high-resolution photos of the branch structure of Walter’s trees or any other tree they know where HPM has been exercised exclusively for some years, please post because we can compare side by side.

I take close up photos for my own reference of branch structure of different species at shows, museums etc. Below are a few of them of trees created through traditional methods and not HPM (to the best of my knowledge). I’d be extremely surprised to see if HPM alone can achieve these short internodes and compact taper & movement without pinching in maples (Zelkova tend to back bud all over the internode anyway, so probably achievable without pinching).

Acer buergerianum. Photo taken at this year’s Taikan-ten.

Three different Acer palmatums, also at Taikan-ten last month.

A branch of an Acer campestre of Luis Vallejo. Photo taken at Luis Vallejo bonsai museum in Alcobendas.

Zelkova serrata. Photo taken at Luis Vallejo bonsai museum.

Seki-joju Acer buergerianum, also taken at Luis Vallejo bonsai museum.

There was an upload limit to each file on this forum. If anyone’s interested in a higher-resolution image of any of these, let me know and I can upload on WeTransfer.

[rafi]

I don’t have close up pictures of anyone’s trees. I just want to point it out that there are no HPM trees older than 10 years approximately. Whereas any of the trees at the Kukofu-ten are in training for 40 or more years. You can look up for example the Emperor tree, a Carpinus orientalis by Maria Hadjic that won a special mention at the Trophy last year if I am not mistaken. I am pretty sure that the judges that gave Marija this prize looked carefully at the ramification. Ryan does have some minor criticism of that tree but I don’t remember where I heard him describe it. So we have at least one prize winning HPM tree in European standards that was developed in less than 10 years from stump. I can only assume that WP’s trees are at least of the same standard if not higher. Hence my conclusion (and my belief) and not at all clickbait the title of my video that it is in my opinion the fastest way to develop deciduous bonsai. As anyone will have noticed if listened or read carefully all I said or wrote about the HPM, I never spoke about refinement because I am not at that stage yet but I plan at the moment to not pinch them for the foreseeable future well into refinement and use exclusively HPM. Stay tuned for the videos showing their development every year (there are six of those for year 1).

[Bonsai_Bentley]

I asked Walter Pall directly for information on this and he’s so fed up that he told me to just google it. Ppl suck. Not Walter, the ppl that sit there and argue this. It’s one technique of MANY. Get over yourselves. Don’t like it? Don’t do it. It’s pretty simple. There’s no need to make the man feel like he has to defend himself to a bunch of strangers.

[rafi]

Walter commented in Bonsai Nut. Hi posted a picture of the emperor. Very interesting how much more ramified it is compared to Sebastian Sandev’s tree on the Youtube video in the same thread. Frankly in my view, as objectively as I can judge bonsai trees and irrespective of the style which I much prefer naturalistic to modern Japanese, I cannot say that HPM give results that are any worst than the traditional method even comparing to a tree in training for many many decades and to have a tree of that quality in 11 years from a stump, frankly it is plain obvious to me what method to use for my deciduous, not just for development but for refinement too.

[Chris]

I don’t see many (if any) people attacking Walter. I see people discussing the method, which is what discussion forums are for. I’m sure it gets annoying for him, but he could just stay out of the forum stuff if he doesn’t like it and gets so fed up.

[Nate_Andersen]

Link to the thread? I read a few, but I didn’t go through all 300 pages of this discussion lol

[Chris]

It’s called “Bjorn Bjorholm Speaks out on Hedge pruning”. That’s the current one, though there have been others in the past.

[Bonsai_Bentley]

Bonsai Nut is definitely it’s own beast. I venture there sparingly. I have many other forums I indulge in to get that kind of interaction. I prefer my bonsai interactions to be peaceful.

Anyway, best resource I’ve found so far. I can’t wait to give this a shot.

[rafi]

Here is one of Walter’s comments there:

Bjorn Bjorholm Speaks Out On Hedge Pruning

and another where he states that it is 2-3 times faster than traditional methods (i.e., no clickbait):

Bjorn Bjorholm Speaks Out On Hedge Pruning

[Nate_Andersen]

Thanks for the link. I am just so frustrated that none of his photos he posts anywhere are high resolution with the option to zoom in on them. It does look great though in general from what I can see in the photo, not that I’d base it all off that, but nonetheless.