Japanese black pine grow two full flushes of growth per season. This allows the entire candle to be removed. Doing so will not kill the branch of a heathy trees as long as there are needles behind the cut to alllow sap flow. Removing the entire candle will stimulate the tree to grow the second growth, or flush, with a higher number of buds. This is classic bonsai technique called “mekiri”. We typically time the exact timing of removing the candle. Again “mekiri”. Is the removal of the entire candle. It’s usually done in mid June. By that time the candle is usually fully open and does not look like a candle. If we de-candle later in the summer the second flush has less number of summer days to develop. This with increasing the ramification (more branch division) causes the needles to grow much shorter. If we decandle early in the season we force the second flush to develop prematurely. This allows more time for the second flush to develop allowing longer needles. Bonsai and garden tree pruning have some similarities. They are also different. Unfortunately the tree in the video did not have traditional pruning early in its life so it still looks like a Christmas tree. Pruning for shape should ideally be started a little earlier in the tees life. Master Japanese gardeners devote their lives to mastering this art. Seeing a fully developed Japanese garden tree is an emotion experience. It’s hard to describe in words. There are such few people who know these techniques outside of Japan. Certain Japanese gardens around the world also have high quality Japanese black and red pines. Still it’s hard to compare to the gardens of Japan. I wish more young people would take an interest at learning this art form and recognizing how much knowledge is required to develop works class trees. There is relatively little information available in the west regarding this art form. Few Japanese books have been translated and few westerners go to Japan to learn the art of growing garden trees. The best source to learn proper pruning of Pinus Thunbergeii is probably the bonsai community compared to the gardening community. All the best, MH
It is good to see someone who knows what they are doing . I am now retired but for two decades I have tried to properly prune my customers trees. Nearly all of the landscape contractors in my area are clueless on proper pruning techniques.
Très bien expliqué. Le pin noir est un pin fort et si il est en bonne santé, vous pouvez supprimer totalement les chandelles afin qu'il bourgeonne en arrière (c'est ce que je fais sur mes bonsaïs). Les japonais appellent cela le "mekiri". On attend la suite avec impatience !
I love, love, love your channel. I watch many videos on pruning pines and you are really doing a fantastic job - in your explanation, careful demonstration and excellent camera work so we can clearly see and truly learn! Thank you for that! I hope you will soon make a video update on this tree - maybe a fall pruning/shaping?? ;)
I have got a Japanese black pine in my garden which is about 5' tall. I want to make it Niwa Ki in future and want to keep in small shape. Can I start to pruning this tree right now?
Hi, if you are in autumn now (depending on where you live in the world), I would recommend waiting until spring time. Once the new candles have grown, it is a good time to start shaping the tree. You can then remove unwanted candles or shorten candles, remove unwanted branches and even shape branches using ropes or rods. What I do for maintenance in autumn is only cleaning out dead needles from the last 2-3 years of growth as they typically turn brown at that time of the year. You will see that soon in one of the next videos. Hope that helps and good luck with your project :)
Very good: instruction, filming (drone shot was great showing tree's circumface growth and other plantings' placement), and length of video. Is there a follow-up video regarding this tree? From Colorado.
Not yet, this is the only tree I am working on at the moment. You can see two pictures of the style I want to achieve in the "5 Essential Evergreens" video I uploaded recently. On these pictures you can see how these trees are trained in gardens in Japan and this is what I am going for on this tree :)
