Structural Pruning of Pine

[Ali Raza]

Hello everyone. I am back again. Need some help on pine.

The pine is pinus roxburghii collected from wild in march 2019 and was potted in pumice, crushed bricks and gravel mixture. You can see the leggy branches growing out of control as pine was left to recover from transplant shock. Spring have arrived here in Islamabad. Soon these branches on pine will get out of control and even long. My intention was to prune the pine in mid summer for ramification. However i also wanted to limit the height and remove some of the unwanted branched simultaneously.

I would like to know best approach possible without harming the pine. If i prune unwanted branches and reduce the height, will it have enough energy left to withstand summer pruning ?. (I have heard that pine can endure only one abuse per year).
herewith picture attached. ( Like to go for formal upstraight style bonsai. But open to your style suggestions. )

 

[Paradox]

I am not familiar with this species and how they respond to bonsai techniques so its hard to give detailed advice.
I can however give you some general advice.

The first and most important is after a repot, you need to make sure the tree is fully recovered and healthy before doing any addional major work.
It can take more than one season for a tree to fully recover. You need to watch your tree and learn what a healthy vigorous tree looks and acts like.
The one insult per year is an important guideline that should not be ignored.

IF the tree is healthy and showing vigrous growth you can prune SOME of the long branches this year.
I would not remove more than 25% of the foliage mass in a year.

Honestly, based on your pictures, the tree is alive and somewhat healthy but I would not consider it overly healthy or vigorous.
It doesn not have alot of foliage on it right now and can probably use all its got. It could use another season of growth and fertilizer.

It might be best served by wiring out the branches and feeding the tree heavily for another year to see how it responds.

 

[Forsoothe!]

Is this a test? Is there some specific reason that you have this tree? Bonsai is hard enough for beginners and all the rest of us without starting in hole. Forgive me, but that is the worst looking candidate I have ever seen. You need to go back to square one and start all over again seeking to buy something which has potential. You can want something because you see a finished tree and fall in love with it. We all do. But the first order of business is to learn what bad candidates look like and avoid them. They are worse than the Coronavirus. At least you can recover from that 99% of the time. A bad tree will haunt you until you kill it. I have, and everyone I know has killed or otherwise screwed-up trees, good and bad, many times. But some candidates are just too far from what can be made into bonsai regardless of how much skill is applied on an endless time scale. I have no idea what will grow in Islamabad, but I'm sure something better looking than what you have is available. Look for something that looks too dense, with too many branches. It should be too short and overly compact. Take pictures of trees or shrubs that are shrub sized in the local landscape. Show the pictures here and get some feedback on where to go from there. Becoming a good shopper is more important in bonsai than many other skills that you will acquire over time. Once you learn what not to buy, you make it easier for you to advance to higher levels.

Now, all of you out there in La La land that think I have overstepped my bounds and treated this OP badly may have at it telling me how bad a person I am. Someday, the OP will look back on this advice and smile.

 

[wireme]

Now, all of you out there in La La land that think I have overstepped my bounds and treated this OP badly may have at it telling me how bad a person I am. Someday, the OP will look back on this advice and smile.

Ok.

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!!! Thppptdp!

My view from lalaland here says it’s workable. Looks like it likes to backbud and can easily have plenty of branches to work with eventually. It’s got bark, a trunk with reasonable girth and shape for a naturalistic upright.

I can totally understand the reverse taper at the base and possibly further up being a deal breaker for many people but doesn’t have to be, depending on point of view and maybe on how spoiled for choice a person may be. It would be better if it was better, no doubt and material selection is important, you’re right.

@Ali Raza
I would probably give it another recovery season before pruning much at all but you are the one who saw how it grew last year and how it looks now so you can trust your own judgment there, hopefully it’s good.
I think you should look at the whorls and areas where too branches or buds will swell up the trunk or n places you don’t want it swollen, try to decide if another year of growth will cause problems that will be difficult to resolve later, that might force some decisions on pruning timing.

 

[Shibui]

Well picked up Wireme. There are plenty of new shoots growing on the trunk so likely to be new back buds - a very useful thing for a pine used for bonsai.
Because we know so little about this species it is going to be hard to give good advice. Some things you will have to try out and see what happens.

I can see some new growth so the tree is recovering. How well it is recovering is hard to say because I can't see the tree or what it was like last year and I don't know the normal growth for this species. If you think it is going OK I would be happy to start some pruning and see what happens this summer.
I would be happy to reduce the height and remove any unwanted or over long branches. The idea of only 25% removal per year is probably a good idea until you find out how it reacts.
If it all goes wrong and the tree decides to die because of pruning or pruning too early we will have learned something about a new pine sp and you will not have lost anything really valuable.

Fingers crossed and please let us know what happens.

 

[Mike Corazzi]

Let it grow. Do nothing. Let it get taller. I can see a great walking stick in its future.

 

[Ali Raza]

I am not familiar with this species and how they respond to bonsai techniques so its hard to give detailed advice.
I can however give you some general advice.

The first and most important is after a repot, you need to make sure the tree is fully recovered and healthy before doing any addional major work.
It can take more than one season for a tree to fully recover. You need to watch your tree and learn what a healthy vigorous tree looks and acts like.
The one insult per year is an important guideline that should not be ignored.

IF the tree is healthy and showing vigrous growth you can prune SOME of the long branches this year.
I would not remove more than 25% of the foliage mass in a year.

Honestly, based on your pictures, the tree is alive and somewhat healthy but I would not consider it overly healthy or vigorous.
It doesn not have alot of foliage on it right now and can probably use all its got. It could use another season of growth and fertilizer.

It might be best served by wiring out the branches and feeding the tree heavily for another year to see how it responds.

Thank you for your opinion on this pine. I have got plenty of pinus roxburghii as abundant pine to experiment with here in my region. I had fertilize one of the pine heavily last year; which resulted in large needles and leggy growth of the branches. This year my strategy will be different. I will be planning to stop fertilizer at least a month before pruning. After pruning, I will wait for new growth to get stiff and then resume fertilization. Hope to get good results.

 

[Ali Raza]

Is this a test? Is there some specific reason that you have this tree? Bonsai is hard enough for beginners and all the rest of us without starting in hole. Forgive me, but that is the worst looking candidate I have ever seen. You need to go back to square one and start all over again seeking to buy something which has potential. You can want something because you see a finished tree and fall in love with it. We all do. But the first order of business is to learn what bad candidates look like and avoid them. They are worse than the Coronavirus. At least you can recover from that 99% of the time. A bad tree will haunt you until you kill it. I have, and everyone I know has killed or otherwise screwed-up trees, good and bad, many times. But some candidates are just too far from what can be made into bonsai regardless of how much skill is applied on an endless time scale. I have no idea what will grow in Islamabad, but I'm sure something better looking than what you have is available. Look for something that looks too dense, with too many branches. It should be too short and overly compact. Take pictures of trees or shrubs that are shrub sized in the local landscape. Show the pictures here and get some feedback on where to go from there. Becoming a good shopper is more important in bonsai than many other skills that you will acquire over time. Once you learn what not to buy, you make it easier for you to advance to higher levels.

Now, all of you out there in La La land that think I have overstepped my bounds and treated this OP badly may have at it telling me how bad a person I am. Someday, the OP will look back on this advice and smile.

Well truth is always harsh one. I respect your opinion and hope to learn from you. I believe I was under the spell when I picked the tree, but i really want to see something out of it (other than a dead tree).

 

[Ali Raza]

Ok.

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!!! Thppptdp!

My view from lalaland here says it’s workable. Looks like it likes to backbud and can easily have plenty of branches to work with eventually. It’s got bark, a trunk with reasonable girth and shape for a naturalistic upright.

I can totally understand the reverse taper at the base and possibly further up being a deal breaker for many people but doesn’t have to be, depending on point of view and maybe on how spoiled for choice a person may be. It would be better if it was better, no doubt and material selection is important, you’re right.

@Ali Raza
I would probably give it another recovery season before pruning much at all but you are the one who saw how it grew last year and how it looks now so you can trust your own judgment there, hopefully it’s good.
I think you should look at the whorls and areas where too branches or buds will swell up the trunk or n places you don’t want it swollen, try to decide if another year of growth will cause problems that will be difficult to resolve later, that might force some decisions on pruning timing.

Thank you @wireme. I will be reducing the height of this pine and let it recover for a year. Pruning work can wait for next year.

 

[Ali Raza]

Well picked up Wireme. There are plenty of new shoots growing on the trunk so likely to be new back buds - a very useful thing for a pine used for bonsai.
Because we know so little about this species it is going to be hard to give good advice. Some things you will have to try out and see what happens.

I can see some new growth so the tree is recovering. How well it is recovering is hard to say because I can't see the tree or what it was like last year and I don't know the normal growth for this species. If you think it is going OK I would be happy to start some pruning and see what happens this summer.
I would be happy to reduce the height and remove any unwanted or over long branches. The idea of only 25% removal per year is probably a good idea until you find out how it reacts.
If it all goes wrong and the tree decides to die because of pruning or pruning too early we will have learned something about a new pine sp and you will not have lost anything really valuable.

Fingers crossed and please let us know what happens.

I will report the updates.