I started decandling some of my 9-year old pines this year. A number of them lack the interior branches I’ll need for styling. Typical decandling – removing the spring shoots – would produce dense summer growth and likely trigger some, but not all of the interior shoots that I need. By cutting back further, I hope to stimulate lots of interior shoots – branches that I can work with as I start to establish the trees’ primary branches.
Some of the new shoots may be needle buds, others may be adventitious – both, in this case, will be welcome. My main worry is that by cutting back so hard I’ll get too much summer growth. As a hedge against removing too much foliage, I left some escape branches in place (see the first tree below). These I’ll remove in fall or winter.
Before decandling |
After |
Before decandling |
After |
Before decandling |
After |
Before decandling |
After |
This approach is similar to the cutback-decandling technique I noted last year, but I’m cutting back quite a bit further this time. Am looking forward to seeing the results!
