RozendaalArts
Sapling
TL;DR (see below for full backstory): I want to give this Pine a slightly more windswept style, because I find the current form somewhat unnatural, so I'm thinking of removing some of the branches on the right, only keeping what's growing with the wind (right to left) and possibly grafting one of the removed branches onto that long bare section of trunk above the graft to interrupt that long taperless line. So my question is would that be enough, is there more I could do to support this windswept style, or is it even just a bad idea basically removing half of the current pyramidal shape?
So I have this White grafted on Black Pine, which I'm taking care of for my mother, who got it from my grandfather who bought it I think 30-40 years ago if I remember correctly from what my mother told me. No idea why my grandfather bought it because he never did anything with this or other bonsai, and my mom doesn't know nor care for bonsai either, and they both had it buried in the ground, pot included because they thought that's how you keep bonsai small.
Late '23 my mother asked me to care for it, partly because I'd just started learning with the late Teunis-Jan Klein at Deshima near where I live.
So I dug the pot out, cut off one big root that went out of the bonsai pot into the soil, and slip-potted it to a slightly larger pot, and one day took it to Deshima to get Teunis-Jan's help giving the tree its first styling, which was in winter at the end of '23. Spring or end of winter '24 I repotted it back into the original pot. Pot has no signature, clearly mass-produced but still nice and good quality, I think it suits the tree and it being the pot my grandfather had it in I wanted to keep it in there. The original soil was just regular potting soil but compacted over decades to form a clay that was really hard to remove. Of course I left some because you're supposed to, with mycorrhiza and such, but let's just say it wasn't by choice. The nebari seem to be fused with the stuff because trying to remove it to expose the surface roots I couldn't tell when I'd reached wood. Mycorrhiza or not I'd like to slowly remove all of it over the years just because it's so badly compacted and ruining the surface roots.
I know the wire scars on the trunk are criminal, I guess it being one of the first trees I ever wired I did it too tightly, and should've kept a closer eye on it. I'm sure I checked it monthly, or at most two months before, didn't notice anything and thought it was fine cuz it didn't seem to have grown a lot. Then checked it and had a heart attack in August. Beginner's mistake I won't make again.
So now it's doing quite well, though with our weather and especially the way summer's going this year it's been slow opening its needles, and it has several backbuds that are barely moving, though I did pinch candles and did some light pruning in spring. For the next steps I'd like to emphasize the windswept look by removing anything growing against the wind (on the right), because the current styling with the regular pyramidal shape seems a bit unnatural to me in combination with that folded-over trunkline. I'd at least want to wait till next year to do this of course, but I was wondering what y'all think of the plan, cutting roughly where I marked in the photos, and maybe even grafting one of the cut branches onto that long scarred section of trunk, maybe halfway or three quarters of the way up, to break up that long, uninterrupted, taperless trunkline, and maybe introduce some taper.
Let me know what you think.
Here's the tree before and after first styling:
So I have this White grafted on Black Pine, which I'm taking care of for my mother, who got it from my grandfather who bought it I think 30-40 years ago if I remember correctly from what my mother told me. No idea why my grandfather bought it because he never did anything with this or other bonsai, and my mom doesn't know nor care for bonsai either, and they both had it buried in the ground, pot included because they thought that's how you keep bonsai small.
Late '23 my mother asked me to care for it, partly because I'd just started learning with the late Teunis-Jan Klein at Deshima near where I live.
So I dug the pot out, cut off one big root that went out of the bonsai pot into the soil, and slip-potted it to a slightly larger pot, and one day took it to Deshima to get Teunis-Jan's help giving the tree its first styling, which was in winter at the end of '23. Spring or end of winter '24 I repotted it back into the original pot. Pot has no signature, clearly mass-produced but still nice and good quality, I think it suits the tree and it being the pot my grandfather had it in I wanted to keep it in there. The original soil was just regular potting soil but compacted over decades to form a clay that was really hard to remove. Of course I left some because you're supposed to, with mycorrhiza and such, but let's just say it wasn't by choice. The nebari seem to be fused with the stuff because trying to remove it to expose the surface roots I couldn't tell when I'd reached wood. Mycorrhiza or not I'd like to slowly remove all of it over the years just because it's so badly compacted and ruining the surface roots.
I know the wire scars on the trunk are criminal, I guess it being one of the first trees I ever wired I did it too tightly, and should've kept a closer eye on it. I'm sure I checked it monthly, or at most two months before, didn't notice anything and thought it was fine cuz it didn't seem to have grown a lot. Then checked it and had a heart attack in August. Beginner's mistake I won't make again.
So now it's doing quite well, though with our weather and especially the way summer's going this year it's been slow opening its needles, and it has several backbuds that are barely moving, though I did pinch candles and did some light pruning in spring. For the next steps I'd like to emphasize the windswept look by removing anything growing against the wind (on the right), because the current styling with the regular pyramidal shape seems a bit unnatural to me in combination with that folded-over trunkline. I'd at least want to wait till next year to do this of course, but I was wondering what y'all think of the plan, cutting roughly where I marked in the photos, and maybe even grafting one of the cut branches onto that long scarred section of trunk, maybe halfway or three quarters of the way up, to break up that long, uninterrupted, taperless trunkline, and maybe introduce some taper.
Let me know what you think.
Here's the tree before and after first styling:
