Hello, from Peter Chan and all of us at Herons Bonsai. We want to share with you some bonsai tutorials we think you will find helpful. In these tutorials we offer a range of expert tips on bonsai care including shaping, pruning, wiring, growing and much more.

Bonsai Tutorials

How To Prune and Shape Black Pine Bonsai

Learn the basics of bonsai pruning with this helpful tutorial from Peter chan:

Today I will show you how to refine a black pine into more of a bonsai shape. The Pine is such a vigorous grower that it can easily become a mass of needles. In the case of this tree, you can hardly see any of the structure. It has already been wired, so it's trunk does have a nice shape. However, it does still need some further refinement. As I film this video it is the first week in June and since April this pine has developed many long tendrils. Some of which are as long as 12 inches.

Black pines are very vigorous, so don't be afraid to pull the needles off.

I'm just going to go ahead and pull out some of the needles until I start to see a shape. This will not harm the tree, but rather benefit it by letting light into the branches. This will harden the wood and encourage more back budding.

If you have a pine, I recommend you do this once a year, in early summertime. It is a simple process. All I'm doing is plucking the needles off until I start to see more of the original structure. You can use gardening gloves to do this if you wish.

Im going to remove some of the new branches that have grown since last year. I am removing anything that I feel is superfluous, simply leaving behind the branches that stick out at the elbows of the trunk as is the classic way of arranging the branches.

Now Im going to do a bit of wiring.

As always, you begin by wiring two branches together using one piece of wire. Never wire one branch on its own.

Now I can leave this tree to take shape.

I would like to show you another example using this really hairy pine. The needles have grown so much that you cannot see the trunk. I will use the same process on this tree as the one before; begin by plucking the needles until I start to see the trunk formation.