Since we negotiated terms, this pine has grown better. I don’t decandle it in the summer, I don’t wire every branch, and I don’t repot it often. For it, the tree stays healthy and looks generally decent.
However, I do trim strong shoots, remove dead needles, and pull downward-hanging needles in the fall. Here are a few shots of the minimal work done, per our terms and conditions.
Before any work done on the tree in a yearOld dead needles pulled from the interiorA few downward-facing needles removed, along with a few strong shoots which were trimmed back to a more proximal bud.
And after the grueling 30 minutes of work:
Done for now.
In the spring, I may do a little more wiring in the upper right side of the tree…and I may not.
Obligatory snow shot, 1/3/22
This tree originally came from Dave DeWire, out in the Seattle area. Dave was a collector of corkbark JBP cultivars and freely shared his knowledge with me when I was obsessed with the different cultivars. Dave died in March 2021, and will be missed in the corkbark JBP corner of the bonsai world. RIP.
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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2 thoughts on “Quick update on Corkbark Japanese Black Pine, ‘Taihei’”
Brian, thanks for a great informative post. I have a design question. Above the primary and secondary branches is a noticeable gap in foliage. Would the design be better if you pulled the third and fourth branches lower and had smaller gaps in four places rather than two large gaps?
Nebari Bonsai 
Brian, thanks for a great informative post. I have a design question. Above the primary and secondary branches is a noticeable gap in foliage. Would the design be better if you pulled the third and fourth branches lower and had smaller gaps in four places rather than two large gaps?
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.