Satsuki and Bonsai in Mack's GardenRenewal February 2nd, 2011 |
The pruning of pine trees I pruned my 20 pine trees on 22nd January because it was very warm in December in Ise, Japan. One of them is Nishiki-matu whose English name I don't know. It is the big tree which one of my friends gave me about 30 years ago. Two of them are white pine trees which my brother gave me about 25 years ago. He brought them home when he cleared a mountain, using the power shovel. Two of them are the black pine trees which I brought home from the rock cliff in the campus of Shukugawa Gakuin Junior College in 1973 where I was an assistant professor. The rest of them are the black pine trees I have grown in the flowerpots from the seeds: they are 38 years old.
I would like to show you the photos of three black pine trees before and after pruning. Their trunks are not thick. It is because I haven't given them a lot of fertilizers and had grown in the flowerpots which had been filled with mountain sand. Fortunately the sand is perfectly free and very good because I can bring it home from the mountain in my native place, where a lot of red pine trees grow. Recently I have mixed the sand (half) with soft akadama (half) because I think the mixture keeps water and fertilizer longer than the sand does. It is because I recognized that they were a little bit weaker several years ago, having been planted in the sand for a long time. Now they look much stronger than before. If I had given them a lot of fertilizers, and used the mixture of some kinds of soil and sand, their trunks would have been thicker and thicker: at the same time I couldn't have kept them in the small type of bonsai.
These are my experience concerning pine trees.
Black pine (1) before pruning
Black pine (1) after pruning, height = 38 cm
Black pine (2) before pruning
Black pine (2) after pruning, height = 38 cm
Black pine (3) before pruning
Black pine (3) after pruning, height = 34 cm
White pine, height = 49 cm
Nishikimatu, height = 65 cm
Please look at the trunk and branches of this tree. They are very curious and strange.