2 Pinus Pinea, can they be transformed into bonsais?

[cyHt~|{]

Hello bonsaiers,
I have 2 Pinus Pinea (stone pine), I got them grow out of the seeds back in 2017, so they are about 5 years old now. Unfortunately they don't look very healthy, I probably didn't hydrate them enough when they were about 2-3 years old. As a result, the needles near the trunk turned orange, and it extends up to some part of the branches. So the green needles are mostly at the tip of each branch. I didn't take care of them as bonsais until now, just regular trees in big pots. I think I could start to transform them into bonsais. I am just not sure how feasible it is, especially how to deal with the orange needles parts. If I were to prune out branches, or simply reduce the size of branches, I might remove everything that's green on the trees, causing their death I suppose? I don't see much new green needles near the trunks.
Ideally I would like to turn one of them into a cascade bonsai, and the other I haven't thought much about it, yet.

I am a total newbie to bonsais. I have questions like "Can I force the tree to grow green needles near the trunk if I manually clip green needles at the tip of branches?".
I plan to buy some wires and soil/gravel/pot soon, to start the process to transform them into bonsais.
Thanks for any pointer, tip and comment.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Pinus pinea is difficult because it keeps producing juvenile foliage (the flat, single needles) whenever it is pruned.
But yes, you can make a bonsai from them. It's easier to work with other species though! Try to find a mugo pine, a sylvestris pine or a pinus nigra. They keep their "adult" needles if they are pruned.

There are very few people in the world that have experience with pinus pinea as a bonsai. So I'm not sure if you can get a lot of help if you start making them into bonsai.

 

[Wulfskaar]

Some people want to keep the juvenile needles because they are much smaller.

But yeah, I have found very little information, especially long term info. I've have mine for 3 years now. Here is the link to mine: https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/pinus-pinea-for-a-beginner.47215/

So far, I've only done pruning of lower branches and repotting. When I repotted, I went bare root and took a lot off, but it survived. It's in a grow box full of bonsai jack pine soil and seems to like it just fine.

Currently, it's in the midst of a massive scale attacks, so I'm trying to deal with that issue. My plan is to cut it down when healthier to form a flat canopy similar to adult Pinus pinea.

The hard part here is that it grows fairly slowly for me and that there are no good resources showing long term care or results of major pruning, and no good resources on handling candles and stuff, so you're kind of on your own with your experimentation.

 

[Wulfskaar]

Nice work getting them from seed! I would recommend a spring repot into some good soil (good soil: well-draining). As far as pruning goes, as I mentioned above, I haven't found much info, so you might be experimenting a bit.

Please keep us updated on your progress because we'll all learn from it!

 

[Nivel]

David Cortizas in our Spanish's bonsai community has some videos about Pinus Pinea starting from seedlings and continuing his evolution you can search as "Bonsai zero pino"
https://www.youtube.com/@KaeruEn/search?query=bonsai zero pino

Here is another evolution https://carthago2009.blogspot.com/2013/11/evolucion-de-un-pino-pinonero-de-prueba.html?m=1

First clean them of all that old needles. And yes they grow from back when pruned.

 

[cyHt~|{]

Thanks a lot guys for your replies. I will work with the bonsai on the left, only. I have removed most of the dead needles.