So, at the meeting of my bonsai society we got an amazing demo on decandling and repotting Japanese Black Pines from a true expert on the species, Sylvia Smith. After we had our monthly raffle and I won the JBP below. It’s much younger than my other conifers, any advice on what I should be looking to do with this guy for the next few seasons in terms of general health and potentially early
styling? (My assumption was: Keep it strong, encourage back-budding.)

[quote="PrettyLarceny" post=50462[/quote]

Best thing you can do, indeed. Keep it alive for some time, make sure it's happy in its new environment before you do anything.

Backbudding though is going to be a problem. I see there are no needles left on the trunk?

I like it very much; it has a nebari going on, some green new branches low down in the main trunk, and nice movement.
I would think about chopping it down in the future, but there are other possibilities.
Nice!

Yeah Auk that’s how I got it.