Developing a few more JBP ...

[Ryceman3]

Yeah, I know ... I know, another JBP thread!

I have been continuing with developing JBP stock since I began with them during the "JBP from seed" comp back in 2018.
I definitely have a love for this species, both as bonsai and as trees in general, so it's always nice to be involved with creating a few more. This batch was started as seed back in 2021 and was developed using pretty much identical techniques to what I did during the contest, so I won't go into too much detail with the history to this point as it is pretty much covered in my contest thread here ...

Thread 'Ryceman3's 6yr JBP Contest Entry'

Jun 25, 2018

And so it begins ... well, for me anyway. Being from the Southern Hemisphere I am patiently waiting for July 1, and have spent the past month or more looking for JBP seeds to work with. They are not so plentiful in this part of the world, and our quarantine laws make importing seed from overseas a no-go zone, so it took a bit of extra effort but I have come up with some.

I managed to get a few from 3 sources.

A local eBay site had the cultivar JBP "Thunderhead", which I think may not be as good for shohin as the growth (from all reports) is a bit coarse - but since this was all I could...

• Ryceman3
• Replies: 183
• Forum: The 2018 Six Year Japanese Black Pine Contest

• 

I did want to post what I got up to on the weekend, as it was time to lift these trees from the grow bed and transition back into pots. Definitely a very big moment in the development process where you get to really appreciate exactly what is going on and what you have to work with in the future. I pulled out 11 trees in all. Below is a random sample, I'll add more as I go through the photos and find more interesting stuff to show.
Christmas in July!!

 

[giovanni]

Grande

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Dunno what you did inthe last month… but these are my thoughts of the first post.

Got a whole variety of sizes of future bonsai! Would consider removing all bar branches soon. The speed these are growing there will be some concern of reverse taper in a number of areas.

Alternately cut down to the lowest branches. All have good size trunks low down for smaller bonsai.

Best
DSD sends

 

[Ryceman3]

Dunno what you did inthe last month… but these are my thoughts of the first post.

Got a whole variety of sizes of future bonsai! Would consider removing all bar branches soon. The speed these are growing there will be some concern of reverse taper in a number of areas.

Alternately cut down to the lowest branches. All have good size trunks low down for smaller bonsai.

Best
DSD sends

The ones shown above are all going to be heading down a path to become shohin/kifu sized trees. Only the bottom 1/3 or so is really what I'm considering for the branching etc.
I might have a couple that I'll experiment with larger bonsai, but even then they will finish as smallish chuhin I think. I have just started cutting back and rationalising the branching in the last couple of weeks. All are growing on nicely to this point. I'll try and post up a couple of before/after shots as I get through them.