I have posted this same thread on a different forum but I wanted to show the people that don't visit that forum how I treated a Ponderosa Pine. I recommend not doing this. If you want to see a more appropriate way to handle a Ponderosa Pine I would check out my other progression. www.bonsaiempire.com/forum/progressions/...-progresion-2016-now

In 2014 I was lucky enough to meet Andy Smith for the first time at his house. I picked up this Ponderosa Pine while visiting.

August 2014


I picked it up knowing that I was going to take it to a workshop with Owen Reich the following spring. The following two images are of the tree in May 2015 before the workshop and June 2015 after.

May 2015


June 2015


Things are going good up until this point. But you will soon see that my patience level was not where it needed to be. I had just started with Pines in 2014, This was only the third one that I had picked up. I was reading everything, Ponderosa Pine. Trying to learn as much as possible. I learned about the infamous Fall Technique for Ponderosa Pines. The Fall Technique is where you cut the big buds and pull needles in the fall and the result is supposed to be more back budding and shorter needles.

Now I don't know if I had read something wrong or I just didn't understand. Most likely I just didn't understand the technique and my patience was just not there. The following images were the result of my understanding of the Fall Technique.

August 2015




I know right? Made sense when I read the technique, but now that I have a little more grasp on horticulture I see how wrong this technique is. Don't do that to your Ponderosa Pines.

You read to do one thing at a time. Let's see, I styled the tree in the spring and then reduced all of its energy in the fall of 2015. Wait that was two things. I bet 2016 will be a better year because according to my reading of the Fall Technique I am going to have more back buds and shorter needles. This tree will look amazing I am sure of it.

Moving along.

Do one thing a year. Fall of 2015 to the spring of 2016, sounds like a good time to repot this tree. This image is some time after a repot.

June 2016


Looking good. Short needles. Here it is in August of 2016.

August 2016


The needles are still short, but the one thing I did not get was back budding in 2016.

2017 was the year that I lost my other Ponderosa that I did the same technique too. The tree followed the same timeline as this one. This one was not strong by any means either. Still looked nice though. Needles were still small but the budding was just not happening.

June 2017


July 2017


In the fall of 2017, I pulled the extending trunk line in closer and here the tree in April of 2018.

April 2018


The tree is growing fine this year and think it has finally turned the corner and has built up its strength to finally grow. I feel that I set this tree back 3-5 years by the using Fall Technique and my lack of patience.
If you look at my other Ponderosa in this thread (www.bonsainut.com/threads/sharing-a-pond...n-development.33925/) you can see what doing the right thing can do versus doing the wrong thing in this thread.
If I would have just set the structure on this tree and then fertilized heavily, this tree would be so much further along in its development. But as it is, there has been zero back budding on this tree and I have lost a couple branches that I was hoping to use.

Anyway, I hope this helps to show what not to do to a Ponderosa Pine.

All of my images disappeared.