My first Bonsai. Aleppo Pine, from seed. Guidance going forward

[Esolin]

It's growing fast!

The only thing I would suggest at this point is to try not to lose anymore interior growth. It looks like you cleaned out not only the brown needles but also all of the remaining short green needles and maybe even some of the small green shoots and side branches that had started. It's very difficult to get backbudding on a pine if there are no green needles remaining in the area. On a young pine like yours, I've seen it happen on bare wood without a green needle present to produce the new growth, but usually once you lose that interior green, you can't get it back without grafting. If all the green needles are only on the tips of really long branches, it gives a tree a weird pompom topiary look that doesn't appear natural.

Think about how tall you want your bonsai to eventually be, and how thick you want the trunk. Then plan accordingly. Pine bonsai look very ugly before they looks beautiful. That's because very specific techniques are used to manipulate their growth. Here you can see how professional bonsai nurseries do it:

Visit to Telperion Farms - Bonsai Tonight

Plants love Oregon - 100 wholesale nurseries can't be wrong. Many of these nurseries focus on conifers - and at least one grows bonsai exclusively: Telperion

bonsaitonight.com

You want to keep your lower branches tight in near the trunk and full of green growth. Otherwise by the time your trunk is nice and thick, all the low branches you want to keep will be too long and out of proportion to mimic a tiny tree. Also check out this video. It's about junipers, but the design concept of keeping short branches is the same across all evergreen bonsai, including pines. With pines it's even more important since back budding is harder to get.

Hope that helps.

 

[Bejzu]

Yes you are right. I cleaned out the interior needles which were all brown. There were some shoots with brown needles I removed too. I reckoned they were overcrowded and not getting any sun. But I understand your comments which make a lot of sense. I think this species is a lot more difficult to work with at least for a beginner like me.

 

[Esolin]

It's true: pines in general are a harder species to manage as bonsai. I'm a novice as well. There are a few folks here that are masters with pines that could offer better advice, although not a lot of people work extensively with Aleppo pines. If there are any pine bonsai experts near you in a club, ask questions and learn from them. A well done pine looks amazing, but it takes years of practice to learn all the tips and tricks to get the results you want. Don't get discouraged. With more study and practice, you also can become a pine master. Just read and watch as much teaching material as you can about growing pines for bonsai. Even then it will take some trial and error. I still make plenty of mistakes. You never stop learning. But the more you learn, the more confident you get and the better your trees will look. Your tree can still be an amazing bonsai someday.

 

[Bejzu]

Thanks for your comments. Helpful as always. I'm sure to keep at it. But yes, compared to some dwarf jade's I'm working on, Aleppo pine is A LOT harder to manage.