Fall or winter work on a JBP consists of pulling old needles, some new needles to balance the strength, a little pruning to reduce whorls of shoots down to pairs, and then some wiring to fan out the new shoots. This one was thinned, wired, and candle-cut during the summer, and here is the tree before starting the work this winter:
I’ve been battling needle cast in this tree more than any other pine in my garden. I have made some headway with Bionide Infuse, but it crept up again this fall. Here is a shot of the crown, before any old needles were removed:
After removing the 2-year old needles:
Next up is thinning the shoots; where more than 2 are present, reduce to two:
Bottom two branches complete:
After pruning and thinning some of the current-year’s needles:
I have been studying bonsai since 1994, in an ever-increasing obsessive fashion. In our last 5 years prior to moving from Iowa to Alabama pursuing a career in the foodservice industry, my bonsai collection was limited to a few varieties that could survive brutal winters outside, or winters under dim light in the dank basement of our humble duplex...my wife puts up with a lot. Including the trailer hitch I put on our brown 1983 Chrysler New Yorker to pull a U-Haul full of trees to Nashville for a 3-month stop along the career path that led us to Alabama. 12 years later, we no longer have the New Yorker; and not a single one of those trees remain on my bench, having given the last holdout to a new club member this summer. I prefer collecting native trees and buying the classical species used in Japan, feeding organic, and reading everything I can get my hands on.
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One thought on “Japanese Black Pine winter thinning”
After pruning and thinning some of the current-year’s needles:
Nebari Bonsai 
excellent tutorial. As usual.