Kansai

I want to head back a couple of my pines. Is this a good time of year for major pruning of JBPs? By major pruning I mean removal of large limbs and significant reduction in foliage. What percentage of a good, healthy tree can be removed without too much risk?

Thanks--DR

__________________
Bonsai is easy! All you have to do is stare at a little tree until drops of blood form on your forehead.--paraphrased from Gene Fowler

JLDoggett

It being Nove,ner they should be heading into their dormant period. While I do not know your climate, I would expect leaf change and then drop... unlless you are that far south.

Heavy pruning is usually done in early spring so as the tree leafs back out it also starts to heal over the pruning wounds.

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Kansai

Thanks for the response, JL, but keep in mind these are Japanese black pines, so they won't drop their leaves. My pines are in Kansas--zone 5--and I'm putting them away for the winter a bit early this year because I'm spending most of my time in South Texas these days. I went ahead and chopped them pretty hard in hopes that the wounds will callous over by spring. My intuition tells me this is OK, but I"m willing to listen to other opinions.

On the subject of deciduous trees, I've tried pruning in the early spring before but it seem like the sap just gushes out of the wounds--especially on my maples--so I'm a bit leery of that technique. I prune now in the dead of winter, and that seems to slow the bleeding down quite a bit. Again, my intuition tells me that the best time to prune wound be when the tree is dormant. Am I missing something?

__________________
Bonsai is easy! All you have to do is stare at a little tree until drops of blood form on your forehead.--paraphrased from Gene Fowler

JLDoggett

I have no idea why I read JBP and thought a variety of maple... senior moment. The basic info is still valid, prune during dormancy to save on wap loss and so the tree will start to recover as soon it dormancy ends.

__________________
"Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong....because sometime in your life you will have been all of these"

And I further resolve to click on an ad, each time I visit, to help support the site and to be welcoming to lurking guests when you join! After all, you're already here.

centaura

I've been told that this is a good time of year to hard prune JBP. I just recently got one, that I want to try to turn into a shohin, and it was suggested (by a professional) that I could prune it in the fall. On the side note about maples - I've heard that they tend to bleed a lot when cut, so to cut them back hard in the fall when their sap is receding. That's what I've done so far and have had good luck. I don't know of any other deciduous that have that issue, though I believe that over bleeding with spring pruning is a problem with some pines.

-Centaura

philgrayser

Hi there, i always prune from spring to mid summer and have had no problems with my trees. I dont like to prune in winter as here in Scotland we have cold damp winters and early morning frosts can cause problems with fresh wounds on trees which can cause dieback especially in Maples. Just my 2 cents! cheers Phil G

centaura

I've never been able to get confirmation on the maple bleeding issue, and have always wondered about how much wound sealant helps/stops bleeding issues. I've seen pine sap ooze out from under wound sealant, but not to the extent that it bleed the tree too much. I know there are folks who don't like sealants, so I assume that they have to worry more about things like when sap is flowing in certain species.

As for the other part of Kansai's original question, I don't know how much is too much, but when talking with the grower of the JBP that I got, we were talking about taking most of the plant off (80%). Now, I'm just learning my conifers (I grow mainly deciduous and tropicals, but after being made president of a bonsai society, everyone expects me to know about everything, so I've been trying to hurry and learn about conifers). I'm assuming that if she was counseling me that I could take off 80% of the tree, that it will backbud. She operates a major bonsai nursery that vends at most of the major shows in the US. I'll go with the golden rule that I have for trops and decid - as long as there's green (leaves, but in this case needles) where you're cutting, it should be okay.

-Centaura