This post highlights the development of one of the trees I’ve been growing since the very beginning of my bonsai journey. It’s a Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) that I grew from seed. I started this tree when I was around 15 years old, so it is now 25 years old. If I had known back then what I know now, its development could have been much further along. However, over the past five years of cultivating it the proper way, it has made more progress than in all the years before combined.
First photo of the tree I could find is this. Poor soil from outside and no fertilizer for many years. It grew very slowly and I could be only happy it was alive.
Pushing the tree to its limit - trimming and repotting again to very poor soil. This is definitely not the way anybody should do it, but at that time I had only one book about bonsai and no knowledge how to do it the right way.
At this stage as you can see everything changed. I learned from this forum and other sources how to do it the righ way. Tree at this photo is about 3 years growing in pond basket with "modern" substrate and regularly fertilized. My aim was only to get it stronger from previous years of misery.
Here it is after my first attempt to style it with wire.
It continued to grew well..
And became better and better. This photo is taken at the end of the summer 2024.
And this is how the tree looks now after my first detail wiring of it in the late autumn of 2024.
Here are few photos of detail wiring:
Maybe in 2-3 upcoming years it will be ready for its first pot. I am also thinking about letting it to run one shoot from the top to make sacrificial branch for more thickening of the trunk. Do you think it could be a good idea?
First photo of the tree I could find is this. Poor soil from outside and no fertilizer for many years. It grew very slowly and I could be only happy it was alive.
Pushing the tree to its limit - trimming and repotting again to very poor soil. This is definitely not the way anybody should do it, but at that time I had only one book about bonsai and no knowledge how to do it the right way.
At this stage as you can see everything changed. I learned from this forum and other sources how to do it the righ way. Tree at this photo is about 3 years growing in pond basket with "modern" substrate and regularly fertilized. My aim was only to get it stronger from previous years of misery.
Here it is after my first attempt to style it with wire.
It continued to grew well..
And became better and better. This photo is taken at the end of the summer 2024.
And this is how the tree looks now after my first detail wiring of it in the late autumn of 2024.
Here are few photos of detail wiring:
Maybe in 2-3 upcoming years it will be ready for its first pot. I am also thinking about letting it to run one shoot from the top to make sacrificial branch for more thickening of the trunk. Do you think it could be a good idea?
