Scots pine nursery stock reduction

[apr]

Hi all

Some cheap Scots pine I have to practice with.

Main issues are all those branches from one whorl, leggy growth and foliage far from the trunk.

I think the best course is cut everything in red and have the new trunk line follow the yellow.

ill keep One sacrifice branch low on the trunk and possibly keep the big branch as a sacrifice branch?

What would be the best way to reduce this tree without stressing it too much ?

I am I correct in saying I don't want to take all the foliage off and leave just the new small leader with a small amount of needles ?

All constructive comments welcome !

thanks !

 

[Glaucus]

If you prune back a pine branch to zero needles, that branch will never grow.

I don't think this is good bonsai material. Your best shot is to reduce the main central trunk line to 1 leader. An the first grow node, where all the other side branches are coming from, to 2 or 3 other branches. And to put it in the field and grow it for 15 years. And almost each year, you grow. And you create 1 long almost entirely bald sacrificial leader, while trying to keep the side branches as compact and close to the trunk as possible, as that will be the final tree. And from there, you probably select a new sacrificial leader to create a second thinner section of the trunk.

Make sure it gets full sun because if it grows in the shade, it will be leggy and have long bald internodes with no backbudding.
If you collect from the forest, look for areas where they cleared out all the trees 2 or 3 years before. Any natural seedling growing near large trees will be bald just above the roots. But if it grows in an open field with full sun exposore, they will be compact and multibranched with many branch options.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

What would be the best way to reduce this tree without stressing it too much ?

With material like this, honestly, you can't. And I believe you shouldn't take the stress free option.
In general terms you have two choices:
1. Hope for back buds that might never come, have a stress free plant and maybe it will work and maybe it will not. This is the safest option if you hold your plant dear. It will probably bud on some of the bare wood, but that doesn't fix the straightness and the lack of taper that the trunk has right now.
2. Work with what you have and take a risky move that would force it to bud, at a high chance of losing it all.

Both options could result in you not wanting to own this pine anymore, either because the road is too long, or because it can never be what you want it to be.

There's another option that involves approach grafting the branches onto the plant itself, but that's a three year process and it's no guarantee of success.

What I would do is look inside the pot and see what the roots are doing. They are chunky, it's a tall pot, and you might be looking at more than a couple repotting operations to get them to work with you. This would firstly tell you what the game plan can become; if you find large and thick roots, reconsider growing a tree from seed. Because yeah, 5-6 years of growth would get you a similar sized plant. And if the work involved would take you 6 years to finish: repot in year one, in year three and year five. That would slow the whole process down. That is worth all of it, if you're dealing with prime material. With a ramrod straight pine, not so much. Material selection can be difficult and enthusiasm gets the best of me a lot of the times, I'm not judging but I would like to be an open book about the quality: it's not great.

If the roots look nice and there isn't a hidden trunk-sized bulge of wood in there, I want to propose two options:
Option A is to hack the tree back to that whorl of 8 branches, chop off 6 of them and screw a good woodscrew in there. Screw another one in the base of the plant and use wire to bowstring the trunk into a funky shape. Cutting hard like that, will yield you some buds most of the time; it's a scots pine, they respond dramatically when in good health and being chopped hard. I would leave two branches in case one gives up, and in summer remove the worst one.
Option B is to hack back to a nub just above the first branch, leave a centimeter or four. The bud formation will happen too, but now you have a pliable branch you can work with, at a nice angle too! If you don't touch the roots this year, it'll probably bud all over the place and in two to three years you wouldn't recognize it anymore.

Both A and B are risky operations and depending on the state of the plant, it might not get out of it alive. But design wise, it would "reset" this plant for you and give you a bunch of potential in 2027.
As you can see from the link I provided, I've been trying to do this myself a couple times and I have to admit that I like the fiddling and trying to make a marble out of a turd, but I also have to admit that I have trashed half of these project trees once I got an idea of the wait and care time involved and the potential outcomes being worth that investment.

 

[bwaynef]

Boon suggests starting from seed rather than starting with material like this. I have some started from seed and some trees not terribly dissimilar to this that were given to me. Truth be told, the gifts *might* end up having not been worth the effort, but I'm having a serious go with them.

With this material, if you're bent on keeping it, the first branch is the only one that will be a part of the final tree. Better to cut back to it now and start developing it. I'd go ahead and do that now. Wire the trunk line as well, though be ready to reduce it again after you get the backbudding almost sure to come. If the soil drains at all, it would be safer to leave it alone this year and repot in spring of '26. If you choose to repot it this year, you probably can't get away with as much as you'll be able to next spring.

 

[baron]

Imo it depends what you want to end up with?
We use these as starters for literati/bunjin trees. Wire with thick alu wire, double layer it, choose a line, clean out the whorls and leave one or two branches.

If you want a different style, you might need more taper and more time to let it develop.

 

[apr]

With material like this, honestly, you can't. And I believe you shouldn't take the stress free option.
In general terms you have two choices:
1. Hope for back buds that might never come, have a stress free plant and maybe it will work and maybe it will not. This is the safest option if you hold your plant dear. It will probably bud on some of the bare wood, but that doesn't fix the straightness and the lack of taper that the trunk has right now.
2. Work with what you have and take a risky move that would force it to bud, at a high chance of losing it all.

Both options could result in you not wanting to own this pine anymore, either because the road is too long, or because it can never be what you want it to be.

There's another option that involves approach grafting the branches onto the plant itself, but that's a three year process and it's no guarantee of success.

What I would do is look inside the pot and see what the roots are doing. They are chunky, it's a tall pot, and you might be looking at more than a couple repotting operations to get them to work with you. This would firstly tell you what the game plan can become; if you find large and thick roots, reconsider growing a tree from seed. Because yeah, 5-6 years of growth would get you a similar sized plant. And if the work involved would take you 6 years to finish: repot in year one, in year three and year five. That would slow the whole process down. That is worth all of it, if you're dealing with prime material. With a ramrod straight pine, not so much. Material selection can be difficult and enthusiasm gets the best of me a lot of the times, I'm not judging but I would like to be an open book about the quality: it's not great.

If the roots look nice and there isn't a hidden trunk-sized bulge of wood in there, I want to propose two options:
Option A is to hack the tree back to that whorl of 8 branches, chop off 6 of them and screw a good woodscrew in there. Screw another one in the base of the plant and use wire to bowstring the trunk into a funky shape. Cutting hard like that, will yield you some buds most of the time; it's a scots pine, they respond dramatically when in good health and being chopped hard. I would leave two branches in case one gives up, and in summer remove the worst one.
Option B is to hack back to a nub just above the first branch, leave a centimeter or four. The bud formation will happen too, but now you have a pliable branch you can work with, at a nice angle too! If you don't touch the roots this year, it'll probably bud all over the place and in two to three years you wouldn't recognize it anymore.

Both A and B are risky operations and depending on the state of the plant, it might not get out of it alive. But design wise, it would "reset" this plant for you and give you a bunch of potential in 2027.
As you can see from the link I provided, I've been trying to do this myself a couple times and I have to admit that I like the fiddling and trying to make a marble out of a turd, but I also have to admit that I have trashed half of these project trees once I got an idea of the wait and care time involved and the potential outcomes being worth that investment.

Honestly, it's just practice material I am happy losing it in the learning process.

Option B sounds good.

I figured it would be okay to do a big chop and have the new leader coming out the whorl, but I'm guessing that the first section of trunk doesn't have enough taper to be interesting? - hence leaving a few inches of trunk and developing the first branch as the new leader.

I know pines need foliage to stay alive - would the single branch that's left have enough foliage ? (Or is that where the risk of losing it comes from ?)