Hi all,

My Japanese black pine is coming to its second summer from seed, I repotted it about a week ago with a new soil mix and into a larger pot.

The trunk is about a pencil thick and overall it seemed healthy underneath, there were plenty of roots, some thick and lots of long ones. I didn’t trim any.

Now thinking ahead, should I start considering pruning and wiring it in the next winter or does it need more growth before I start to?

Please see an image below.


Look forward to your feedback,

Thanks

No, not yet. In order to wire you need to have trunk and branches without needles on them. It is possible to remove them, but In this stage the tree needs to grow. Removing needles slows down growth.

In order to prune you need to have branches to prune. Your tree have no branches yet.

I probably would have wired last year already.
It gets increasingly dificult to wire the lower trunk with age. And exactly there is where adding a bend can help create a bit of interest to the trunk.

This is the time where you also can start looking at future development. For pines it is important to realize that you cannot easily cut back; You can only cut as low as the lowest branch. So you need to retain the lower branches.

The process is really something where one could write a full book to get a start.

This is a two year old seedling black pine. My 6 year old pot grown is still flexible enough to wire and bend. I don't get the hurry. At least wait until the needles on the trunk fall off naturally. That will proboably happen come authum.

Not going to argue. I have shared how I would go about this.

Adam, take a look at the trunks I am using in this video. I was unhappy with the flexibility of the lower trunks in these:


Maybe of interest Adam: . Not a pine, but the parallels are there.

I am not arguing, I am discussing. Perfectly fine to do in a discussion forum.

This is my 6 or 7 years old black pines still flexible enough for bending the lower trunk:



That is the pot grown ones. On the ground grown ones it is too late.

But that is great! Now the OP have two different opinions on the topic. That is how everything work in this hobby. People do have different opinions. In the end it is important to have a vision for ones own trees, make a plan to reach the vision and understsand how much time it takes.

Another opinion:

You never know where branches are going to come out. Wait until the tree has developed some branches to figure out styling issues.

In a couple years you will have some branches, you can figure out where the front is, and you can put the bend in to fit the front.

But, it's your tree.

Morning all!

Apologies for ghosting this conversation, I never got a notification that there were so many responses.

Thank you all for your advice, hindsight is a great thing. I’ll look to start shaping come this autumn/winter.

Got some research todo so really appreciate the great videos!

Many thanks
Adam

I agree with Leatherback, I have one about this stage, it already has some movement on the base, and it's now more difficult to do so if I were to do it...

It's not about hurrying the process, and at this stage it's not all about the final design either, it's about adding something now that can give you some potential later, specially if you're aiming for a smaller tree.

That video might help you, I find very productive.

Thx Alblas,

It always baffles me that people do not wiring seedlings. The whole POINT of growing by seed is that you can affect the shape and development from day one. If you not do anything till they are 5-10 years old, you are much better of going to a nursery and buying that plant.