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

July 3, 2025 – After decandling

JULY 3, 2025. This tree has had a great year so far. Good growth, no problems. This morning I called John Walker to make sure I was going to do the right thing, then set about decandling the tree. For the most part, I actually did the full thing: I removed the new growth, leaving only a short stub equal in length to the width of the new growth shaft. Overall I’m happy with the tree this year. The photo here was taken after I decandled it. There’s a Before photo below in the gallery.

APRIL 9, 2025. At John’s suggestion I’ve shortened some of the candles, trying for a roughly equal length throughout the tree. It’s worked fine. I also have a lot of new buds showing up, more toward the ends of branches though, and not so many back along toward the trunk as I’d like to see. It still looks good, though.

JANUARY 7, 2025. Worked this with John today. Wow! John liked my ideas of which existing branches should be removed , and he had suggestions ( which I got on video) on what to do next. I’m altering the photo set included immediately below so there are three rather than two. Shortening the existing primary branches has been started, although more will be done in June. The plan is to bring the width in and emphasize the vertical outline/silhouette of the tree, while keeping the primary branching as it stands currently … with a little tweaking.

DECEMBER 31, 2024. Wow. A lot has been done in the last eleven months. The tree really did well this year, and I’m happy with how it’s developing. When Judy and I went on a two-week cruise in mid-June, I hired John Walker to water and take care of my trees while we were gone. Then we left almost immediately for a week in Georgetown, Texas, and he kept watering. An automobile accident left us sort of sore and not able to do much. John kept up the good work, and even cut candles on this tree, along with completing some additional wiring. Nothing would have been better for this tree.

I was ready to pluck needles on this one in the fall, but the weather stayed warm too long. When we did get some consistent colder weather, I was busy with other stuff and didn’t get to the job until last week. I knew I had to do more, but I kept running into areas where I want to do some work that might not be best for the tree just now. So I’ve scheduled another session with John. Meanwhile there are photos of the tree as it stands now down in the Gallery. In fact here are two photos, one made before needle plucking and one after.

January 29, 2024

January 30, 2024

January 7, 2025

JANUARY 16, 2024.

October 10, 2023

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 him to do the primary work, because I really couldn’t have 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.

APRIL 22,2023.

After Repot April 18, 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.