Black Pine

As others have said, pines are generally not beginner material. I hate to discourage beginners, we all were at one time. But, it's true what others have said, there is better material to start off with.

But, you own this one. I think the best use of this tree would be for you to take it to a club meeting (or beginner workshop if your club has those) where you can use it to learn to wire. That tree is still quite flexible. An experienced hand could wire that trunk, and put in lots of corkscrews and curves... you wouldn't believe what could be done with it! Not that it's going to be a great bonsai, but it will be a great learning experience for you!

Lots of commercial bonsai start off looking like your tree. Then they are wired, and potted and sold as "bonsai" to the uninformed. They are sometimes call "Mallsai", as they are often sold in kiosks at the mall.

The primary fault with your tree is the graft. Many bonsai trees are grafted, but they have to be very good grafts. Right at the soil line. This is more difficult to do, so for regular commercial (non-bonsai) nursery stock, they graft high, like your tree. If it's going in the garden, they don't have to have great nebari (roots/trunk junction), and they don't care about grafting scars. We do, however, when we look for bonsai stock.

Don't feel bad, we have ALL bought something we THOUGHT was great only to find out it really wasn't. You can use this little tree as your wiring trainer, and maybe you can make something pleasing out of it.

Bonsai is a journey. I started 40 years ago. And I'm still learning...

That sucks. I feel like I wasted my money. I didn't start with pines though. I am only beginning but I have others I am happy with right now. I have never done a pine, obviously it is not a good one. It is a grafted Banshosho black pine, which is a dwarfed species to begin with. What's wrong with grafted,the knot at the base?

You don't actually want a dwarf cultivar in some cases. They grow slower and thus take a lot longer to fatten up. If you have raw material that doesn't need to fatten up, then that's not an issue.

The area of the trunk where the graft is is often supposed to be the best characteristic of the bonsai; a nice old trunk with good bark Especially on pine. A graft looks unnatural.

A pine that makes a great bonsai right away will be very expensive anyway. So either you will have lower quality or you will have to grow it yourself.

There are many different ways and styles to do bonsai. But if you want a large pine bonsai, you need a lot of time to grow a good trunk. There are many good videos on youtube but none that really show the creation of a pine bonsai from scratch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKQtaWv-iww
http://bonsaifarm.tv/wob-series-2/wob2-5/

sokonmatsumura said:

Also with the copper wire, do you wrap it on the trunk and then heat it up?

Click to expand...

If you anneal wire on your tree you will likely kill it. You also would be losing one of the benefits of annealing, softer wire that's easier to apply. Copper wire is annealed before it is used, you can throw your roll of it into a fire until it glows, then cool it and you will be all set until you use it all up. But this only applies to wire that is not from a bonsai specific source, most copper wire for bonsai that you buy will already be annealed.

sokonmatsumura,

If all the photos you have posted on this thread are your trees, then it is time to stop spending money on trees, and start spending the money on education. This forum has a lot of information (as do others on-line) and there are blogs you can subscribe to that have fabulous articles that show how to style.

But what you need now is a mentor. Someone (or a group of people) who can show you what good bonsai really look like. There are basic elements of bonsai design that you should know. Some call these "rules" and for beginners, they should be. Once you understand and live by "the rules" of bonsai, your eye gets trained, and you come to understand the "why" behind the rules. At that time, you can begin to "break the rules" of bonsai and still create beautiful trees. Not every tree will allow you to "follow the rules", so at least initially, that tree should be passed over, and another tree selected.

John Naka wrote two "bibles of bonsai" with detailed descriptions of and variations of "the rules". Bonsai Techniques and Bonsai Techniques II. Try to get a copy. Knowing the rules will help you pick better material, you will understand which branch to keep and which to remove, and it will shorten the time it takes for your nursery stock to develop into bonsai. (Naka is not the only author who writes good stuff, but you can't go wrong with him. I was fortunate to have taken some workshops with him back in the '80s. A true artist!)

At your bonsai shop, there should be magazines and books available. Study them. Bill Valavanis publishes a great quarterly magazine, "International Bonsai". In it there are great articles ranging from beginner advice to expert techinques.

A word about pines: They are my favorite. When I look at the great Japanese bonsai, the ones that I always like the best are the JBP an JWP pines. They are, unfortunately, the most difficult to develop. Maybe the fact I KNOW they are difficult makes me appreciate them all the more. Some things about the great pines just require age. Period. Bark, for example. To get great bark, there is no way for us to "style" the tree to make it make bark. The tree has to do it, and that takes time. Taper, is another. Generally speaking, we want the pine to be fat at the soil line, and get a little thinner until it reaches the first branch, then a little thinner as it appoaches the second branch, and so on. Again, that takes time. It makes the tree look aged to our eye. Learning how to create realistic taper is a lifetime project. You little tree, with the graft right there in the middle of the trunk between the soil and first branch will always have that section where it will have a "knob" in the trunk. We call that "reverse taper" and it's a major flaw.

If you had known "the rules" you wouldn't have bought that particular tree. Maybe there were others with better grafts. I have a grafted JWP where the graft is right at the soil line, it's really hard to tell.

Annealing copper wire: Back in the day, I used to anneal my copper wire by placing coils on the BBQ grill and "cooking" it on high until it glowed pink. Yeah, I imagine that would kill the bonsai if I tried to anneal the wire with the bonsai in it!

Adams bonsai is a good source for annealed copper wire: http://www.adamsbonsai.com/websitelong_008.htm

Im guessing from your reaction of my trees I made from nursery stock that they are no good.It is true that so far I have just found plants and then shaped them in ways that I thought looked good, but you old timers are pretty damn hardcore about it. I want to be better of course, and I have read a number of books but there are so many out there. It's really hard to decided what is the most beneficial. I am bummed I really felt good about my Feelin blue deodora cedar. I thought it looked awesome.But this is a rain on my parade. Oh well I'v only been working with it for one year.

Don't let it bum you out, let it inform your next purchases and your practice...
You've only been at it a year, that's not very long in the scale of bonsai. Give yourself a break, get yourself some knowledge and move forward.

No, that's not what I'm trying to say...

Most beginners start off by aquiring a lot of trees. Too many. And then they aquire some more.

Each speciies of tree has it's own unique requirements. When to repot. How to repot. When to trim. Pinching? Some you do, some you don't.

Your cedar looks nice. I don't have any cedars, so I won't say anything about how to care for it, because, I haven't a clue.

My point is, you have enough trees to work on for now. Learn how to make each of them the best it can be. Take some classes and develop your skills on what you now own before you buy something now that you may regret spending money on later.

I guess what I'm trying to say is "Don't put the cart in front of the horse." Invest in knowledge rather than material at this stage of your journey into bonsai.

FWIW, the learning curve in bonsai is very very very steep for the first two or three years. Everyone here has started with trees like this and, unfortunately, everyone has killed a few.

Learn how to care for them horticulturally. That is the key to bonsai -- understaning how trees work and how to keep them healthy. Without that knowledge any amount of design ability is worthless. A dead tree can't be styled.

To that end, soil is the foundation of horticultural knowledge. Understanding how important soil is will go a very long way, especially with pines and conifers.

I kind of hate to pile on here, but the soil these trees appear to be in is not great. Pines have to have free draining soil. This appears to be heavy on the organic components (bark, peat moss, etc.) Pines do best in soil that has virtually none of those. Do a search on "soiless" soils--lava, pumice and akadama to see what pine bonsai soil looks like.

Also, don't get too attached to these trees. The first dozen or two trees everyone owns suffer terrifically as the owner learns the ropes. I've killed my share over the last 20 years or so. After the initial wave of carnage, I started to try and learn WHY they died to avoid making the same mistakes.

Hang in there and don't take us so seriously. Basically, we're trying to get you past the same mistakes we've all made. It may come off as "hard core" but it's really just an attempt to help. If we said "those are terrific trees" and "you've done spectacular work" and your trees died, what good would that do you? You wouldn't learn anything, at least anything that you could use on future trees.

Bonsai is a marathon. Sprinting the first five miles can burn you out.

Thank you. I hear what you guys are saying. I do also feel lucky because I live in Northern California and the weather really is awesome and at a usually constant 65 degrees all year round. Plants seem to flourish here with no error. I like what I have and want to have it survive. I am just going to plant the pine and enjoy it as a dwarf pine tree. I lucked out I think with the cedar and really want to keep it healthy. It seems hard to find information on because it is a very specific cultivar. I need to find some one with experiences with that specific cultivar. Also I want to stay away from pines. I would rather do some junipers, and I have some baby japanese maples that I am hoping to work with as they grow. But pine people I really appreciate your guidance!

living in CA you live in bonsai mecca in the US .... long growing seasons and a ridiculous abundance of bonsai culture, clubs, nurseries that can all help you out on your journey we have a lot of members here from CA in general and they can help you out with finding a club etc.... put your location in your profile so people near by can give localized advise as well as help you get connected to those who can help you....

I am not sure if N. CA gets cold enough for Acer P. but I know there are places in CA where they grow well .... you can always work with tridents (Acer B.) however as they are pretty bullet proof and offer some of the same seasonal appeal ...

you need to learn from local growers what can and can't be grown... for me living in the Pacific North West I can grow just about anything except those crazy desert trees that hate water .... however we grow a smaller number of those things because we know what grows best .... and trying to field grow Pom here would be silly for example ... anyways my point is .... find a club... find local bonsai people.... make friends.... your journey will be far more interesting and fruitful if you do ....

good luck..... have fun and keep being inspired.... and certainly keep asking questions ....

Sokomatsumura,

You live in a beautiful part of the world! Lucky you! Do you ever go to San Francisco? Boon lives there. Check out his website: bonsaiboon.com

He has superb training DVDs. I have the complete JBP series, and they are excellent. His wiring DVD will show you, "how it's done". However, there is no better way than to have someone personally show you how to do it, and point out places that could be done better. It definantly is a "practice makes perfect" kind of thing...