Tree Tips
We have our silent auction this month, so remember to bring your checkbook or cash, as well as items for the auction. This can be a lot of fun and might snag you a great tree or starter.
BLACK PINES
For our hot area, decandle healthy black and red pines from now until early July. Start with larger trees, then move on to shohin in early July. However, the foolproof and best time (it’s not so much a specific date as it is a condition) is when the new needles extend out and away from the candles. Weak candles that have not extended at all should be left intact.
Short candles on the inside and lower part of the tree should be cut at the base.
Medium strength candles should be cut about 1 to 1½ times the diameter of the candle above the base.
Strongest candles should be cut about 2 to 2½ times the diameter of the candle above the base.
You can also cut the short candles one week, the medium candles the following week, and the long candles a week after that. This helps give the weaker candle areas a head start in developing uniform budding. If your needles don’t extend by the end of June, cut them back anyway. You must allow sufficient time for the new buds to emerge and elongate by winter. Cutting later may prevent proper bud setting.
If this process seems too complicated, you can use an alternate method: cut all candles, regardless of size or strength, at the base. Then pluck needles on the strongest areas to equalize the strength of the tree. Since you have been fertilizing heavily up to this point, stop applying fertilizer and don’t resume until late in the summer when new candles are growing. Regardless of the technique you use, you can regulate the growth of the tree by equalizing the needle load.
FERTILIZE
Fertilize your trees regularly. If you keep your trees healthy throughout the year, they can withstand the extraordinary work we want to do with them. I have described the use of organic fertilizer each year. This year, I mixed up a concoction of organic fertilizer (Dr. Earth 5-5-5) and composted chicken manure. I mix this dry, putting an ounce of it in a tea bag. I then dip each tea bag in a dilution of fish emulsion before placing two bags on a small tree or four on the corners of a larger tree. Be sure to wear latex gloves, or your hands will smell for a while. The nitrogen component will break down in about a month, so I add a second set of bags at the four-week mark, and so on throughout the year. Stretch it to six weeks if you are trying to keep a refined tree from growing out of shape. Daily watering breaks it down steadily and adds organic matter to my soil, which is almost entirely aggregate. The chicken manure is Jongs Grow Better Organic Fertilizer, a composted and palletized fertilizer from chicken manure. I got it at Regan's Nursery on Decoto Road off 880.
Alternatively, or in conjunction with the above, you can also use chemical fertilizer as either the primary or secondary system. Peter Tea advocates using Osmocote® every three months as an easy way to deliver what your plants need. In addition, products like Dyna-Gro™ or Miracle-Gro® contain all the trace elements that plants need. I have also used Bayer's 2-in-1 rose food and systemic insecticide product.
FOR MOST TREES IN THE DEVELOPING STAGE
The initial shoot that has come out this year should be wired. You want to get movement for about the first three buds, or about 2½ inches, allowing them to grow and thicken until autumn. Then, you will cut back to those three buds. This will set the movement and give you taper when the next year's growth comes out and you wire the shoots from these three buds. Following this yearly pattern, you will increase the buds to nine the following year (3 x 3) and 27 the next year (3 x 3 x 3). Each year, the sections nearest the trunk will get a little thicker than those farthest out on the branch, providing increasing ramification and natural taper.
PINCHING AND PRUNING
This is an important time of year to keep the growth pinched back or pruned on refined trees. These are the trees you want to show this year or those at a highly refined level. Pinching on refined trees is done with the fleshy pads of the thumb and forefinger, not the nails. It is used to pluck the new succulent growth back to 1 to 3 leaves before it has begun to elongate. By pinching at this juvenile stage, you stop the internodes (the spaces between the leaves) from elongating. If you don’t catch it, the space between these leaves will stretch like a pulled rubber band until the shoot starts to form wood, and the elongation process stops. By pinching it, the wood-making process begins immediately, thus keeping the internodes compact. The farther out on the tree this is done, the more crucial this work becomes. This technique is handy for keeping shoots from jumping out of the branch silhouette you have established. It's used on trees in the refinement stage where you want to slow down the response of the new shoots. Because the tree is pushing out growth and has not yet started to photosynthesize (i.e., started to get energy back into the system), the response is weaker, and the new shoots will be shorter, finer, and in better scale for the refined exterior of the tree we want.
PRUNING
Pruning involves cutting back with scissors. If you try to pinch a shoot and it is hard to do or leaves a hardened core at the site, wood has formed, and you need to use bonsai shears. Sometimes the initial growth has gotten so long (i.e., the first leaf is too far out on the shoot) that the entire shoot must be cut back to the base and started over. Otherwise, the ramification will look odd, and the overall effect will be unappealing. Pruning is also performed to shape the structure of the tree or to induce back budding.
AIR LAYERING
The May and June time frame is the perfect time to air layer a tree. If you have an interesting top or branch of a tree and the area beneath it is unattractive, you have a candidate for this operation. Determine the angle and front of the proposed new tree on the existing trunk. Draw a line on the trunk, and then use a sharp knife to cut the top line all the way around the trunk. Mark another line around the trunk about one trunk diameter below the first line. Then remove all of the bark between the two horizontal cuts, making sure to remove all the bark down to the cambium layer and a little into the xylem (the newest wood). Treat the bark area just above the upper cut with the rooting hormone Dip’N Grow®.
Then, wrap wet sphagnum moss around the trunk 2 inches above and below the exposed bark-less area, and place a piece of Glad Press’n Seal® food wrap around the moss. Tie it above and below with wire to hold the sphagnum moss in place against the bark-less area. Put some aluminum foil over the plastic wrap to shade the area from the sun. Water it regularly and check periodically to ensure that the sphagnum moss is damp and to see if any new roots have formed. Rotate the tree weekly to ensure uniform root formation around the trunk. Don’t remove any branches or foliage during this layering period. Roots will form faster if the growth above the layer is unchecked. Six to eight weeks should suffice for most deciduous trees. Conifers take longer and may require up to 2 years to root out before you can separate them from the under-tree. 🌳
