Fantastic Rico! Thanks so much for letting me know. JBP can be confusing but they are awesome to grow.

Awesome! I am so glad. Will keep uploading as long as I can and as long as people view the content. 😊

🙏🏻😊

Awesome Xavier! Enjoy growing your pines.

So nice of you Barbara! Thank you.

So nice of you Gerrit! “Terry-pines” 😂😂😂😜

I want to make trees 30 to 40 centimeters tall. But thank you very much for answering me.

@djalmaantoniosilva2177 I think the best would be to book a virtual consultation with me. www.bonsaitree.co.za/products/consultation

Glad it was helpful Sue!

それは素晴らしい！ありがとうございます。あなたがそのビデオを楽しんだことを願っています

Wonderful Wesley! Good luck with your pines. 👍🏻

Ah thanks Roberto! Glad you enjoyed the video. Thanks for the wishes and I trust you have an awesome 2024 too!

My pleasure, hope they help you. No, I don’t seal the wound. There is some resin which leaks out but that’s fine. I prune that branch off a year later; give or take. I do that in summer. I don’t know that it matters too much when it’s done, so spring is good too most likely. The point is more about giving time to the plant to transition off sap flow to that branch.

Glad I could help Pascual! Thanks for the kind comment. Thank you for the wishes and may you also be blessed this year. 😊

Will do Billy Bob. Thanks for asking 🙏🏻

Glad it was helpful!

Glad it was helpful Lou!

Glad it was helpful!

You are very welcome Graham!

Glad it was helpful! My pleasure.

You're so welcome!

Glad you think so! Thanks for commenting. 🙇🏼‍♂️

Glad you enjoyed it Alex!

Ah thank you so much ! 🙏🏻

Thanks, will do Matt! 🙌🏻

Happy new year! Thank you!

Thank you! Cheers!

Thank you so much. 🙇🏼‍♂️

Thanks so much 🙇🏼‍♂️

That’s great! Hope the tips come in handy.

Glad you enjoyed it Damian! Thanks for that feedback, hopefully I’ll be doing more field growing content soon.

Glad it was helpful!

Good luck!

Come on, you can do it man! 😊

Thanks so much for that comment, much appreciated 🙇🏼‍♂️

Glad you enjoyed it.

è un piacere, sono felice che ti sia piaciuto, grazie per la visione

Ops , I accidentally deleted the previous messages , always the guy from Lucca Toscana

That’s great! I wish you every success with your exhibition in October then. I am very glad my videos are of some inspiration to you. That’s great. Keep well.

No problem!

Great tip! I have seen those too, long time ago. Do you think they will be UV resistant for a couple years in the African sun though?

That is a good question, I think it calls for an experiment.@@TerryErasmusbonsai

Thanks for asking Richard, very relevant questions. For me, the best time is when I have time and as you saw from the video some I did not get to for at least a year! However I would recommend you cut the side buds at the terminal in spring before they begin extending. If you miss that, then any time after that. Cutting off the entire branch, if you have used the technique I demonstrate in the video where you first ring bark it....you can remove the entire branch any time during the following season - so 1 year later, anytime during summer.

​@@TerryErasmusbonsaijust a follow-up question about the branch removal, I probably missed something or misunderstood your explanation. Did you remove a complete bark ring around the branch, or did you leave a bridge between the lower and the top part? Wouldn't removing the whole ring be the same as cutting the branch off? Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!

@alessiocasagrande7916 hi Alessio. Yes, a complete ring. No bridge. No it’s not the same.

Thank you so much. Do you mean the knob cutter? It is Kaneshin made.

Hi Markus, thats a good question. I guess you could air layer it much higher up (remember that everything is removed on the sacrifice lower down) but to be honest I have thousands of pines and far too little time to bother with air layering which may or may not take and at the very least takes some years. You can make a cutting of the end too though and provided you can keep it hydrated it will root, I've seen that done too.

Great question! I’d suggest every 2 years. Year one they are re-establishing and year two they put on serious development.

Thanks Stephen. I believe the oldest is now 5 years old, not more than 6 from seedling cutting. They were repotted a year ago so will need to repot them next spring (so every 2 years). I’ll probably keep them in these Marukou containers for a few more years. The goal would be in another 4 or 5 years to have some nice little Shohin, if all goes according to plan. Thanks for the compliment! 🙇🏼‍♂️

Great, I am glad it was helpful. Thank you for taking the time to comment. Please allow me to just re-iterate that in the beginning of the video I stated that the 10 tips were not a growing guide. I again said when I came to the tip you are referring to that there are many ways of dealing with these escape branches, an enthusiast can either adopt the tip or they can use another technique if they wish. It is not the same as cutting the branch off no. I showed a branch to which that technique was applied 1 year later and the needles were still alive but clearly not as healthy as the "normal" growth. In the video I thought it was very clear, and I stated that I was using a knob cutter and show myself cutting big chunks out of the wood so definately not just removing the cambium. I am sorry but I do not know what "alimented" or "elaborated" means in this context - please explain those concept to me so I can also learn. Please suggest how I could have been clearer on this as I thought I had made it very clear what the tip was both in word and demonstration, and you are the only person so far to question this. I believe I am cutting into the sapwood as I don't think on a tree of this young age there will be any or much heartwood. Sapwood is the new wood under the Cambium layer. It is often lighter in colour than true wood or heart wood and it conducts water and mineral salts from the root system of the tree to the leaves which would explain why it continues to remain alive. However as the live bark has been removed food materials produced by the needles aren't able to be conducted to the branches, trunk and roots of the tree. I did not go into plant physiology as I must admit that I don't myself know or understand why this works so well but I do hope my explanation helps you a little.

@@TerryErasmusbonsai thanks for your answer. The sapwood conducts the crude/raw sap up to the leaves, and the photosynthesis transforms that into elaborated sap, that travel down the cambium. As the needles are still alive after a year, it's proof enough that the sapwood was not completely removed , the needles continue to receive raw sap, but the flow of the descending elaborated sap is cut out, so it is used to grow the bulge you showed in the video. It's the same principle used for air layer, cutting the cambium to have elaborated sap that will be used to produce roots. As you said, a tree this young probably doesn't have much heartwood, indeed, so there should be little risk to remove all the sap wood. Removing all the sapwood would be the same as cutting the branch. If, as you say, there is little to no heartwood, there is low chances that someone following your tips would remove all the sapwood, killing the branch and weakening the tree.

Thank you so much, so I learnt something today too :)

Thank you for the comment. You will need to be specific about which technique you are referring to. Some are still applicable and others are not when growing larger trees.

Thank you Sam! 🙏🏻

Thanks so much! I use 80% stone 2-3mm size and 20% akadama. But you could change the stone for pumice and also vary the % depending on how often you can water.

Sure, you can make it taller. You should select another branch to continue the trunk line with though before you cut the sacrifice so you can strengthen this prior to cutting the sacrifice.

Thanks Bruce 🙇🏼‍♂️

Thanks for the question. Sounds like you kept the seedlings too wet with that mix. It sounds like they died due to damping off. I use a 1:1 mix of akadama and crushed silica for young pines. They need to dry out a bit. Don’t fertilize a weak plant. Don’t change the soil unless it’s the right time of the year to do so. Adjust your watering and place it in full sun.

Thanks, will do ​@@TerryErasmusbonsai

Great question! Yes for pines in development pretty much any time in summer, ideally very early summer.

Thanks for the question, best watch this video I did on the subject kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Zrigg6agy8qtdoE.html

Yes you heard correctly. I DONT use sacrificial branch/es for pines, but it used to be a technique employed in the past although no longer. I DO use an escape branch.... as shown in the video. I believe the understanding of a sacrifice branch is that it is a branch and it grows out from the trunk generally horizontally taking a huge amount of area on a bench. However an escape branch, at least in this context grows generally vertically and is the trunk, or at least originally it is because it could be a branch in the future which is grown roughly vertically. You certainly can be forgiven for thinking they are the same thing, I get that completely. However in the absence of better terms or a better definition that's what I have, together with the context and video images I think it should be pretty clear what I mean. 😉 I do hope you got something constructive out of the video though, other than just a little confusion.

Hi Andrew thanks for the question. What organic soil? I don't use organics in any of my soil.

@TerryErasmusbonsai Hi Terry, I went back and watched it again. The soil looked organic to me, and then you mentioned organic fertilizer, and I got a little confused. I understand now. Thanks, Andrew

@andrewd5148 no problem! Glad your question is sorted 👍🏻✅