Pine 03
Japanese Black Pine ‘Nishiki’ [Pinus thunbergii/Pinus thunbergiana]

October 10, 2023

JANUARY 16, 2024. In October, John Walker spent a couple of hours with me, mostly on this tree. He wired the primary and secondary branches on the right (the character/main branch), and he wired the next primary branch, leaving the rest for me to do. I’m really glad I asked hime to do the primary work, because I really couldn’t hav e handled the thick copper wire. We also plucked needles, and that’s something I could complete on my own. I’m still happy with the tree and glad I bought it. The photo shows the tree after the work we did. It’s neater than it was, of course, and I love the shape John gave it.

We’re in the middle of a hard freeze right now, so it’s in the garage. I’m excited about doing a little more pruning (not much) in the spring and seeing how it grows this year.

After Repot April 18, 2023

APRIL 22,2023. I repotted this tree on April 18. It has burst out with lots os adventitious buds, it’s growing like crazy, and I couldn’t be happier with it. I talked with John, who told me to just use the same pot. Once the tree is styled, it will fit this pot size better than a larger one. It’s potted a little deeper than it was, but not a whole lot deeper. I cleaned off some of the moss and trash in the mounded up root clump.  I’m keeping it in the shade for now, on the ground, so it can recover a little. A couple of photos below show how many circling roots I had to cut off! I haven’t gotten a new photo since the repot. I’ll wait to do that a little later.

FEBRUARY 15, 2023. This tree has to be repotted, but that can’t happen yet. I have to wait until April or so. I’m going to ask John if he has a larger pot I can put it in. I like the depth here, but I want it to have more room to grow for a few years. Also, Jennifer Price was talking about my red pine and said repot it but don’t do anything else to it this year. That applies here as well, so no pruning of candles, no more needle plucking, etc. Just repot it. I’m hoping for some new buds popping up behind the tufts of growth from last year, so as soon as I see movement I’m going to fertilize it aggressively. Fingers crossed.

NOVEMBER 5, 2022. I took the tree to the ABS workshop at Aldridge Garden to get some help with needle plucking and general approach for the tree. John Walker gave me a lot of good advice. Turns out he bought one as well — but he planted his in the ground. He just wants to have a cork-bark tree in the ground.  There are before and after shots below, in one of those photo gallery things.

September 17, 2022

SEPTEMBER 2022. OK. I’m a sucker for a pretty trunk. Before we went to Bordeaux at the end of August, I looked at one of the emails from Brussel’s advertising marked down prices for the Labor Day weekend. The prices were still good when we got back, so I bit. In the end I got a $695-priced tree for $556 including shipping and enough styrofoam peanuts to fill two large contractor bags. My hat’s off to the packers.

Meanwhile, this might not be the studly trunk I might have wanted, but in time it will have a lot of character; ‘nishiki’ is a cork-bark tree. The tree is 32″ tall, I love the shape of the trunk, and I think there are good possibilities here for something unlike my other black pine. Time will tell. According to the tag from Brussel’s, this one is currently 12 years old, so it’s still a baby.