Can Bonsai Do Math?

Tags

Bonsai, branching, decandle, decandling, jbp, pine, ramification

I don’t recommend asking your bonsai for help with your calculus homework, but if you treat them right, your pine branches sure can multiply!

Early July Work

Tags

Bonsai, decandle, jbp

Early July in Virginia, USA, means three things: uncomfortable temperatures, fireworks, and decandling Japanese Black Pine. It’s already humid and in the 90s F at midday, and I am looking forward to a cookout and fireworks tomorrow to celebrate US Independence Day. Pine work was my task of this morning. 

Now, the trees I had to work on today are not going to set the bonsai world on fire. (We’ll leave that to the weather.) I currently have only two black pines, and in fact, I grew them from seed. Here is one before today’s work. 

Not particularly impressive. And with only two, I am no JBP expert. I haven’t known what to do with them for years. Remember, I have been doing bonsai all wrong for decades (see my ABOUT page here to read about it).

My past mistakes aside, I am figuring this stuff out. Last year was the first time I had the guts to decandle, and this year the proof of its effectiveness as a technique is crystal clear. 

You see, last year I decided to count how many candles I removed from each plant. One tree only had nine shoots, and the other (the one pictured in this post) had 30. This year, I removed 26 and 57 respectively.  If that’s not proof of concept, I don’t know what is. Already I have improving ramification, shorter needles, and better growth balance. 

Here is the same tree from above after removing candles, and plucking needles to bring each growing tip down to 6-8 pairs. 

If you’ve been hesitating to try decandling, as I was, you should give it a shot (assuming your trees are strong and healthy). You will see improvement in one year, and if this first year is any indication, I expect marked improvement in the next.