Patrick chose this Scots pine (Pinus sylvstris) because he liked the nice trunk movement, good taper, experienced bark and the second trunk. The tree was healthy and as he later found also had a very good nebari. This pine was collected in 2009 in Norway. It was formed by moose in a bog. Scots pines grow boring straight everywhere. But where moose wander through the vegetation like elephants the pines have all sorts of contorted shapes. This one is not all to contorted, but also not boring straight.
At this time or the year it is not a good idea to do too much styling to a pine. They are full of sap and after a long rain branches will snap when you try to bend them. So we went as far a we thought feasible at this pint in time.
On a pine like this one every single little branch will have to be wired and bent eventually. But the old needles should be plucked before that. Since the tree lost a lot of green already it was decided to not weaken it further and wait with the plucking of needles for another four to six weeks.
Future work:
End of July, beginning of August: plucking of old needles
then wring every little branch and start bending.
The bending will not necessarily be done full as one could loose a few branches over winter.
In summer of 2012 more bending will be done and needles will be plucked again.
In April of 2013 th tree will go into a round bonsai pot as shown on the virtual.
Scots pines are not the kind of material that should be styled with abstract crowns which look like Japanese white pines or mugo pines. They will never hold this kind of form and always look kind do untidy. The solution is to style the crown in a rather naturalistic form right away.
This pine looks quite untidy and unfinished at the moment. Well, trees don't have to be finished in one afternoon. We'll see what it will look like in a few years. I hop that Patrick will report.
