Shohin Five Needled Pine
This tree belonged to a regular customer at Shunkaen, and one of the few who collected Shohin sized trees. Most of the customers, and certainly my master Kobayashi, were only interested in large sized trees, which although are impressive and powerful, are a pain to work on.
I am very much a fan of Chuhin and Shohin sized trees, you cannot get away with using poor material on a small tree, the faults are harder to hide. A truly great chuhin sized tree is worth a hundred mediocre large trees. Whenever this customer came to the garden he would always come to see me, not just for my expertise but also for the fact that I would drop whatever I was doing and work on his tree right there and then...assuming that nobody was looking. One of the positive points about shohin trees is that you can work on them and finish them within a few hours.
This work took less than 45 minutes, most of which was spent taking photographs.
When
it was brought in, it was looking slightly bushy, a bit over grown and
in need of a trim. If you look at the relative strength of
the branches, you will see that the bottom, dropping branch is looking
a lot weaker than the top. This i snot so much a problem now
but will be in the future if it is not remedied now. The tree
does not have a clear structure and you cannot see anything that is
going on inside. Although it looks ok now, it could be so
much better, especially if it was repotted into something much more
suitable.
After a brief look and consultation with the client, I set about remo
ving any of t
he unnecessary
shoots. As with all white pine, to
maintain the shape and structure you
must cut back the strongest terminal shoots and
leave the weaker secondary shoots to survive and grow, thus creating a
compact little tree. To attempt to
balance up the difference in strength between the bottom and the top,
very little was cut from the bottom branch.
One of the best features of this little tree is the twisting trunk. Although it is still young and will need at least another 30 years before it starts looking old enough to be considered a great tree, it does have all the right qualities. Unfortunately as it is now, you cannot see them. By removing one branch, the tree is opened up and the sinuous trunk can be seen.
With all the buds and branches removed it was time to be wired. I don't like to wire every single branch but with this tree it was necessary. I wanted to tighten up the shape as much as possible. Compact the branches and position them so that next year and the year after that when the next sets of buds grow, they will fill out the
shape and create a much denser image.
It was important to make sure that the best features of the
tree were shown off to their full potential.
To do this the foliage on the cascading branch was collected together and pushed forwards, creating both movement and allowing the viewer to see the trunk movement.
The upper branches were layered
into distinct foliage pads, however
when they fill out, the boundaries will become less obvious and it will
feel much more connected, rather than the slightly pom pom effect that
there is now.
The bottom branch still needs to fill out a lot more so care must be taken over the next five years to hold back the growth on the apex as much as possible. As it is I still feel that it is too large and needs to be cut back again. It is planted in a very deep, water retaining pot, this is not a good idea for five needled pines which will respond to such conditions by growing quickly. Not only will this cause it to lose its shape but will also slow down the aging process. We want to see the gnarled, flaky bark or an aged tree and the best way to do that is to starve the tree into submission, however this client is not comfortable with that as he is unable to trust his wife to water properly during the day while he is away at work so he insists on a larger pot. To compensate for that he must be extra vigilant with his pruning of the apex. You can see here how much was removed, but through judicious use of wiring, the same shape was maintained.
<-- Before
After-->
It will need to be compacted once more next year, and then again the year after that, and the year after....
Shohin can be very rewarding in that it doesn't take long to work on a tree in one sitting, from start to finish in 45 minutes; but, and this is a big but...it can be a pain in that you must stay on top of it throughout the year. You will need to work on a shohin tree more times in one year than a large tree which can be left to its own devices for much longer. That said, shohin are much easier to carry!
Click on the images to
see them larger!
This tree belonged to a regular customer at Shunkaen, and one of the few who collected Shohin sized trees. Most of the customers, and certainly my master Kobayashi, were only interested in large sized trees, which although are impressive and powerful, are a pain to work on.
I am very much a fan of Chuhin and Shohin sized trees, you cannot get away with using poor material on a small tree, the faults are harder to hide. A truly great chuhin sized tree is worth a hundred mediocre large trees. Whenever this customer came to the garden he would always come to see me, not just for my expertise but also for the fact that I would drop whatever I was doing and work on his tree right there and then...assuming that nobody was looking. One of the positive points about shohin trees is that you can work on them and finish them within a few hours.
This work took less than 45 minutes, most of which was spent taking photographs.
When
it was brought in, it was looking slightly bushy, a bit over grown and
in need of a trim. If you look at the relative strength of
the branches, you will see that the bottom, dropping branch is looking
a lot weaker than the top. This i snot so much a problem now
but will be in the future if it is not remedied now. The tree
does not have a clear structure and you cannot see anything that is
going on inside. Although it looks ok now, it could be so
much better, especially if it was repotted into something much more
suitable.After a brief look and consultation with the client, I set about remo
ving any of t
he unnecessary
shoots. As with all white pine, to
maintain the shape and structure you
must cut back the strongest terminal shoots and
leave the weaker secondary shoots to survive and grow, thus creating a
compact little tree. To attempt to
balance up the difference in strength between the bottom and the top,
very little was cut from the bottom branch.One of the best features of this little tree is the twisting trunk. Although it is still young and will need at least another 30 years before it starts looking old enough to be considered a great tree, it does have all the right qualities. Unfortunately as it is now, you cannot see them. By removing one branch, the tree is opened up and the sinuous trunk can be seen.
With all the buds and branches removed it was time to be wired. I don't like to wire every single branch but with this tree it was necessary. I wanted to tighten up the shape as much as possible. Compact the branches and position them so that next year and the year after that when the next sets of buds grow, they will fill out the
shape and create a much denser image.
It was important to make sure that the best features of the
tree were shown off to their full potential.To do this the foliage on the cascading branch was collected together and pushed forwards, creating both movement and allowing the viewer to see the trunk movement.
The upper branches were layered
into distinct foliage pads, however
when they fill out, the boundaries will become less obvious and it will
feel much more connected, rather than the slightly pom pom effect that
there is now. The bottom branch still needs to fill out a lot more so care must be taken over the next five years to hold back the growth on the apex as much as possible. As it is I still feel that it is too large and needs to be cut back again. It is planted in a very deep, water retaining pot, this is not a good idea for five needled pines which will respond to such conditions by growing quickly. Not only will this cause it to lose its shape but will also slow down the aging process. We want to see the gnarled, flaky bark or an aged tree and the best way to do that is to starve the tree into submission, however this client is not comfortable with that as he is unable to trust his wife to water properly during the day while he is away at work so he insists on a larger pot. To compensate for that he must be extra vigilant with his pruning of the apex. You can see here how much was removed, but through judicious use of wiring, the same shape was maintained.
<-- Before
After-->
It will need to be compacted once more next year, and then again the year after that, and the year after....
Shohin can be very rewarding in that it doesn't take long to work on a tree in one sitting, from start to finish in 45 minutes; but, and this is a big but...it can be a pain in that you must stay on top of it throughout the year. You will need to work on a shohin tree more times in one year than a large tree which can be left to its own devices for much longer. That said, shohin are much easier to carry!
For more
pictures, click on the link below to go to the Picasa Gallery...
 |
| shohin five needled pine |
