Japanese White Pine for a Dummy

I’ve documented my “spur of the moment” introduction to bonsai round about the mid to end 1990s elsewhere (Juniper Story) and after about 6 or 7 years, I must have had over 100 trees in various stages of development ranging from home grown seedlings to what I considered at the time, to be quality pre-bonsai purchased from various outlets. (I’m down to about half this now, split between the house and an allotment)

I was at the stage where I was becoming increasingly frustrated with my own efforts, probably becoming aimless and I was impatient to get my hands on better trees to work with.

In August 2004, after much deliberation and at least 10 trips to his stand over an August weekend, I purchased the Japanese White Pine pictured below from Ken Leaver of Windybanks Bonsai at the annual Broadlands Craft Show in Hampshire.

The tree was a Japanese import, stood around 14” high (36cm) and was estimated to be about 12 years old. Ken Leaver helped me select it from 3 similar trees and recommended this one due to the well-developed trunk base, overall shape, unobtrusive graft and good branch arrangement.

Japanese White Pine as bought

So here I was with my first £100 tree and not a clue what to do with it.

I began badgering a local Japanese White Pine owner I had met via the Garden Web Bonsai Forum (Richard Fish) for help and advice. Fortunately he was very patient and it was also fortuitous that Richard was taking lessons at the time from Nobuyuki Kajiwara – a well known sensei on the European bonsai circuit - who as I discovered subsequently, had also trained Ken Leaver of Windybanks Bonsai in White Pine care.

We used to rendezvous in the car park of a local community centre ridiculously early on Sunday mornings before the lessons and I’d help Richard, Nobu san and the students carry their trees inside whilst picking up what advice I could from all and sundry for free. A bonsai groupie no less!

Acting on advice, the first thing I did in August 2004 was prune off the very vigorous shoots from branch ends to see what I had and open the tree out for a good look. I also embarked on a quite sparing watering regime – probably no more than 3 times a week in the deep training pot and also began using rapeseed cakes as fertilizer with a roughly bi-monthly dose of half strength Miracid.

After initial pruning

Following the advice I was receiving second hand from Nobuyuki san via Richard Fish, I started to really examine the tree in Oct 2004 with a view to coming up with an initial pruning and development plan. There was no doubt in my mind that at least one of the bottom two branches would have to go. Although these branches were very well developed (see below) they were essentially sacrifice branches and had served their purpose in thickening the lower trunk.

Bottom left and right branches

Even if the tree ended up being shorter, the bottom left branch (below) was certainly too low to meet the convention of it being one third of the way up the tree which was part of my understanding of bonsai design. By this time I had also moved the tree into a plastic pot and surrounded it with 50:50 medium akadama and grit without disturbing the original root ball to allow for free drainage during the very wet English winter.

With the foliage opened out

So in November 2004 I took the major step of removing both bottom branches. I plugged the pruning wounds with plasticine mixed with Vaseline. (This home made cut paste is still in place 2 years later)

With one branch removed

With both lower branches removed

It is perhaps prudent to outline my understanding of the Kajiwara Method for Japanese White Pine development at this point.

In brief terms, he advocates no full scale candle pinching in spring or summer and allows free vegetative growth.

Then around November you prune off strong, unwanted new shoots to allow the weaker shoots further back on the branch to develop. This is the finer “Bonsai Growth” you are trying to encourage in this methodology. The provisos being that you don’t do heavy pruning on a branch that you wish to lengthen and thicken or remove all the foliage from any one branch.

 

You then balance development of the tree by pulling more needles from stronger areas and less from the weaker areas that need to be strengthened, leaving the buds(at the base of the needles) intact.

Initially I found the idea of actually pulling needles off the tree to promote new growth (via back buds) hard to grasp but did as I was advised and pulled a few needles from the bases of the strongest shoots that remained.

Following this advice I pruned off all the surplus strong shoots at the branch ends, taking care to leave weaker buds in the interior of the branches intact. The following picture by Richard Fish illustrates the principle showing strong shoots that could be pruned off depending on what your intentions are with the particular branch.

 

By November 2004 the tree was virtually unrecognisable and in a new pot. It showed good taper and had about 7 or 8 main branches in position at strategic points around the trunk that diminished in size nicely towards the top. During what was an exceptionally wet winter, I actually tied heavy plastic around the tree trunk and pot as a raincoat at one stage.

November 2004

In April 2005 I started to panic and frantic emails were dispatched to my advisors, the gist of which were,

“The tree isn’t budding - I’ve killed it!”

I remember placing a “Dear Abby” type post on Garden Web seeking advice and I was advised to be patient. Sure enough by the end of April, tiny buds began appearing that then developed rapidly into candles by mid May 2005 (see pics below) with the result that the tree began to fill out nicely.

New and developing buds side by side

Having successfully overcome the major hurdle of (as I thought) using and abusing the tree for 8 months, with it then surviving and indeed thriving, I started to look at it in more detail. The current planting angle and branch arrangement was clearly unsuitable as shown in the picture on the left below. It looked much better turned almost 180 degrees as on the right.

Then in late June 2005 after much deliberation I decided to re-pot the tree. The tree was strong and logic indicated that a tree in good condition should be able to take at least light duty treatment of this sort mid-way through the growth cycle. By June the tree looked even better to me from the new angle.

 

Proposed new planting angle

This decision to re-pot was based as much on my own impatience to do something with the tree as it was on USA bonsai artist Vance Wood’s writings on the benefits of summer re-potting of Mugo and Scots pines on the Bonsai Talk Forum as well as consultation with local bonsai outlets.

This sort of work is possible in mid-summer as certain pines have a semi dormant period when, in simple terms, they take a breather to gather strength for the late summer growth spurt in preparation for winter.

Summer re-potting is not a thing to be undertaken lightly and I would only recommend it if you are sure of how the species will react and confident in your abilities. Some trees may benefit but you may kill many others. Conventional wisdom says June is a bit early as well, with July into August being better in many peoples’ opinion.

The tree was bare rooted as far I could without doing major root damage. (below left) The original potting soil was a mixture of yellow kanuma and akadama exhibiting a dry, fluffy beige appearance. This was the “legendary” and beneficial mycelium fungus that grows in amongst tree roots – pines especially - and helps the tree to absorb nutrients in layman’s terms. (see close up below right)

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The tree was re-potted in a round speckled pot using about 60% of the old soil to incorporate as much of the fluffy fungus as I could and 40% fresh, medium akadama. The tree was wired into the pot securely and the soil surface was mossed for the following photograph that was posted on Garden Web Bonsai Forum and later on Bonsai Talk Gallery.

My own comments on the tree were,

“The pot is too large but I have a smaller one just like it. The tree probably needs to sit straighter and should be lower in the pot. Rather than the rugged old pine tree image often employed, I see a happy little tree growing on a green hill.”

Clearly I was feeling quite pleased with myself at this stage. But at the same time I was slightly paranoid to say the least that I might have gone too far this time. A quote often heard that “You’re not a true bonsai person until you’ve killed at least one good tree,” kept echoing in my head.

In hindsight I had created an amorphous green triangle in a totally unsuitable pot but at least it had a good trunk and some potentially well placed branches. I had studied the tree, made something of a design plan, acted on it and executed it instead of just looking after it like the “arboriculturalist” I had been until this time.

During 2005 I started participating on The Bonsai Site Forums and began discussing the tree with Harry Harrington amongst others and took much of the advice I had been given on board. In November when the annual “prune and pluck” phase came around again, I re-wired the tree to try and improve the shape by bending the first left branch down and trying to work some movement into the very stiff looking back branch visible at the bottom right below. From the side it stuck out like a frying pan handle!

My needle plucking was again very tentative as I felt the tree had been through a lot that year.

I applied guy wires attached to screw eyes in the trunk to pull the branches down further in an attempt to age the appearance and tried to arrange the foliage into pads. This wasn’t very successful as you can see below.

During March and April 2006 I made it my business to find out all I could about the mysterious Japanese White Pine with a view to really trying to crack this tree later in the year. I spoke to vendors, bonsai teachers and searched every website I could find for insight. I published the findings – which weren’t particularly startling or conclusive - in the form of a survey on Bonsai Talk Forum. Most of the information I had found re pruning and candle pinching of Japanese White Pines was vague and contradictory in fact, so I resolved to stick with my original method of not doing any general candle pinching at all.

The tree was fertilised heavily in early April with slow release Osmocote cones and rapeseed cakes along with the bi-monthly dose of Miracid. It responded with a massive flush of new growth in mid May right on schedule.

The tree suffered a sustained sparrow attack in June which resulted in the tree nearly being dug out of its pot and some root damage which necessitated an emergency re-pot. I used a matt brown oval pot I had bought as a possible final pot for the tree. (The tree now has a permanent screen of heavy duty drainage mesh over the soil to protect it from any future attacks).

This last summer (2006) was another real scorcher in the southern UK but the tree did well with just a light watering every day sitting in 80 deg F plus temperatures in full sunlight for 4-5 weeks straight.

In keeping with the development methodology outlined above, I did no general candle pinching at all during the 2006 growing season but did remove 2 or 3 massive shoots near the top of the tree.

I had a holiday in early September leaving the watering to younger family members. I moved everything to the shadier side of the garden in the shadow of a shrub border with instructions to soak everything with a fine hose mist every other day. I was please to find all my trees healthy and well on my return.

During October I removed a lot of yellowing needles that I recognised as 3 year old needles further back from the branch ends that were dying off and that should have been plucked off last winter.

As this year’s time (2006) for “pruning and plucking” drew nearer I was seeing more possibilities for the tree. I’d benefited from intense Bonsai forum activity, personal research and also an all day visit with Harry Harrington during August where we discussed, inter alia, wiring, and creating the illusion of foliage and branching on shohin trees.

The oval pot and the angle at which the emergency re-pot had been done were clearly not showing off the tree to its best advantage. After 2 years I had also started to get some back budding on older wood with new shoots that needed to be exposed to light and air in order to develop.

In November 2006 I completely unwired the tree and removed all the guy wires. I pruned off a few over-long branch ends and the tufty topknot of an apex. For the first time I really did some serious needle pulling on the strongest shoots near the top of the tree and the ends of the strongest major branches.

After I did the best wiring job I’ve ever done on virtually every shoot, a few turns on the turntable and a bit of propping up made it apparent the tree would look better sitting up straighter and rotated slightly as shown in the pictures below.

I had found out via Harry Harrington on the Bonsai Site Forum that the Bonsai Today Masters series book on Pines was available in the UK so I ordered it up from Kaizen Bonsai and began to read avidly. The photographs showing the needle pulling operation were particularly enlightening.

This gave me the additional confidence I needed to do even more needle pulling. I refined the wiring a little more to tidy up a few stray shoots and slipped it into another pot that I purchased with this tree in mind earlier in the year and took the photo below.

Although this is by no means the “finished article” it is certainly becoming more like a Japanese White Pine bonsai although barely a foot high (30cm) from the pot rim.(shohin size)

The more extensive needle plucking has opened the tree out and we can just start to see the beginnings of a visible branch structure rather than a jumble of needles.

The more rounded top has matured the tree somewhat and the initial trunk angle from the pot with the subsequent movement to the right, forward slightly and then up does give some immediate visual interest I feel. The “frying pan handle” rear branch is now more under control and gives the tree some visual depth even in the photo.

The pot is about the correct depth. Something a bit plainer in style, slightly narrower, a tad more shallow and nearer to the trunk colour will probably be better eventually.

I added a line of moss along the front edge of the pot for the photo. There’s not tremendous nebari down there but there’s no faults either and maybe it should be shown off.

There is still too much foliage on the tree giving it very cuddly feel and the needles are comparatively large for such a small specimen. The foliage needs to more sparse and impressionistic and I’ll need to learn how to achieve that.

Walter Pall has a well known 100 year old Pinus Sylvestris ( Scots Pine) very much in the style I would like to aspire to . (see below)

Scots Pine by Walter Pall

In keeping with my “one season at a time” approach, I will wait until next November before really tackling this tree again. By then I may really have the confidence to reduce the needles down to 5 or 6 pairs on each shoot and see what happens.

T Riley
Dec 2006

Thanks to Harry Harrington, Vance Wood and Walter Pall for their assistance.

Appendix

Japanese White Pine

Suggested Personal Care Guide – for UK Zone 7-9

Please note that this care plan is aimed at trees in development – not show-ready bonsai.

Soil	Initial mix was 60 % old soil and 40% medium akadama. I am now using Tesco Premium Lightweight Cat Litter (Kittydama) which is super hard clay balls along with Akadama in a 40% Akadama 40% Kittydama 20% old soil mix by volume. I have added a small handful of composted bark (soil conditioner) on occasion but am omitting this now.
Watering	Water thoroughly with a light spray when the tree needs it and check it every day between April and October. I use a small, very fine rose watering can and often water daily in high summer but not if there has been recent rain. In the usually very wet UK winter I don’t water at all between November and March probably and sometimes protect the tree with a plastic cover in times of extreme rain.
Fertilizer	2 rapeseed cakes per 9 x 6 inch (22.5 x 15cm pot) starting in March changing them every month to 6 weeks. Add 2–3 slow release general-purpose cones in the pot corners – I’m using Osmocote. Miracid every other month at half strength. An inert soil mix based on Akadama, hard fired cat litter and/or grit will need regular fertilizer.
Pruning	Hard prune in November to remove unwanted branches and over- strong or unwanted shoots. Think carefully before you remove anything and have an end design in mind. What is an out of place shoot now - may become a branch of the future or can be wired into position. (see diagram below)
Candle pinching	No full-scale candle pinching in spring or summer. Remove wildly out of place and downward pointing candles if you can’t resist. Spring and summer candle pinching becomes more important for developed trees to maintain shape.
Needle Pulling	Pull out bundles of needles on strong shoots near the top of the tree and at branch ends to leave at least 5 or 6 bundles minimum on the strongest shoots. These can also be cut off with sharp nail scissors leaving about 2mm of needle as a stub. Leave more needles on weaker shoots further back on the branch. (see diagram)
Bud Pruning	After pruning and needle pulling aim to leave 2 buds in each position. Leave 2 weak buds on strong branch shoots and 2 strong buds on weak branch shoots Protect anything that looks like a bud further back on the branches.
Wiring	I do my major wiring in winter taking care not to dislodge or damage latent or new buds where possible. Do your wiring after needle plucking to get a clear picture