Once the trunk on a pine in development reaches the desired size, it’s time to focus on the branches. After 13 years in development, the pine below is now ready for the refinement stage.
13 year-old black pine
The branches are quite undeveloped at this point, but the basic trunk is set. Here’s a better shot of the trunk.
Trunk with young branches
One fun thing about this tree is that it has two candidates for the front. Here it is from the other side.
Candidate front #2
One reason I didn’t remove the sacrifice branch earlier is that it was helping to heal the wound left by the removal of a larger sacrifice branch. The wound isn’t closed yet, but I expect it to close in the next year or two.
Wound about half-way closed
After removing the sacrifice branch I repotted the tree into a much smaller terra cotta container.
After removing sacrifice branch and repotting
And here’s the tree again from the second candidate front.
Candidate front #2 after repotting
I’ll start feeding the tree in about a month, and take another look at the branches in spring at decandling time.
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