After bud selecting and needle pulling on the pines I decided that some of them could do with a bit more refinement.

That meant wiring. It meant wiring almost every branch and twig on the trees. On trees like this that means quite a bit of time and a lot of wire.

Here’s a red pine that I’ve been developing for about 20 years. The trunk is good and there’s plenty of ramification on the branches but the branches and smaller twigs are still a bit wild.

Half a day later and I’ve managed to wire almost every branch and twig. Now to try to bring some order to the branch structure.

Smaller twigs are now a little better ordered to make foliage pads. I’ve also lowered many of the branches to try to simulate increased age. The lowest branch is still a bit too straight and horizontal. It is also quite low on the trunk. maybe this tree would look better without that branch?

This little exposed root style black pine has been slowly developing over about 10 years. Branch ramification is now ready for further refinement so the entire tree was wired.

At the start of this work the tree measured 30 cm from pot to tip. I decided it might be possible to compress this one down to satisfy the requirements of the Shohin bonsai category. That means under 20 cm from the rim of the pot.

Guy wires to bend the trunk and thus lower the apex brought the top down to 25 cm.

Another guy wire compressed the roots a little bringing the height down to 22 cm.

A little compression of the apex branching and this tree is now just under 20cm that means it has had a 1/3 reduction in height.

Spring growth and subsequent decandling should see all the branches fill out a little more next summer and it should be ready to show.