Happy Birthday to Peace Love Bonsai! - Japanese Black Pine Progression
If it's Thursday, then it's time for another bonsai tree progression. Before I update you on the black pine that occupied my homepage for almost a year, it’s time to say Happy Birthday to the PeaceLoveBonsai blog!
I launched this site on September 16th, 2020, with very little thought or understanding about how all this would work. It’s been an awesome year!
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed interviewing potters and sharing the progress of my trees. I’ve met great people and have been able to share stories and my passion of bonsai with the world. It’s been amazing and I’m super excited for what lies ahead.
Speaking of what lies ahead, be looking for more content from me over the next few weeks and months. I’ve made a commitment to myself to write for this site on a regular basis. My goal is to become a better writer and produce valuable content for all the PLB readers. If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter, as I have many ideas I want to share with my most important group, the consistent PeaceLoveBonsai readers and that’s you!
In conclusion, I want thank each and everyone of you for reading and sharing and liking the stuff I've put out there over the last year. It’s been a blast and I can’t wait to see what year 2 brings! Now, onto the bonsai progression of the week, my Japanese Black Pine!
If you want to see the first installment of this progression, click here. It’s cool to see this one get more and more refined as the years go by.
Summer 2021 - Before Decandle
I follow the same process with all my Japanese Black Pines.
Spring - Fertilize
Summer - Candle Cut - Stop Fertilization
Fall - Pull wire, pull old needles, reduce buds to two & rewire as needed
If you want more instruction about handling JBPs, I would you suggest check out my "Best Online Sources for Developing Black Pine".
Summer 2021 - After Decandle
As you can see, I've cut the candles. This was completed right around July 4th of this year.
Fall 2021 - Before Pulling Needles
Recently, I brought the tree into the workshop for fall work. Here is the tree before I started pulling needles. In addition to pulling old needles, I will cut back to two candles of equal strength.
This is a great time to take off old wire and rewire as needed. As you can see, I've added new wire (copper color) next to the aged wire (chocolate brown color).
Fall 2021 - After Pulling Needles
Here is the tree after fall work and some new wire. I added some moss, it is after all, our birthday! I like how this tree is gaining ramification and detail slowly each year. I might give this a tree a year of rest from candle cutting. I don't want to put too much stress on the tree. A year of relaxation might do it well.
Final Before & After
As I conclude this post, I want say thank you one more time to all the readers of the PeaceLoveBonsai blog. Here's to another great year! And as always, don't forget to subscribe to my monthly newsletter to receive all my bonsai related posts. Until next time, Peace Love Bonsai!