Thursday, May 3, 2007

Black pine styling, KoB contest - part 3

phase 3:

Now the branch that is probably going to the back was lowered with a guy wire. It was not a big deal and should not hurt the tree at all. Then the secondary branches were wired. These are all the grafted Kotobuki variety. Here I learned to be very careful. Being used to all sorts of pines I wired and bent as always. But three branches snapped a little. I careful stabilized them and put some protectant on the open wound in the hope that at this time of the year it would heal. It had rained for a few days and the branches were full of moisture. This made them much more brittle than I expected. I then put the tree into the greenhouse for a day to let it dry and then continued the wiring.

Here the result of the second styling step.This is starting to look like the kind of shape that I had envisioned.