Pruning White Pines

[Thillmaine]

I would say 2 climbers half a day for an average size pine, for my A shaping method.Roughly 15 man hours inclkuding brushie, depending on location, single or multi stem, etc.. Getting to the very last candle on a atree that has never been pruned or is in a forest setting would be very difficult to do without pole tools.

 

[Shayne Picard]

[ QUOTE ]
On the right day it seems the candles can be broken off with a light touch. But the whole tree does not develop at the same time, so it may not work, but I've been wondering if the job included many trees, and a low bid, if you couldn't brush the candles off with a plastic rake, or at least most of them and give the remainder a snip.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds like you are talking about removing all the candles - nothing more, nothing less. I thought the process seemed a little more involved: removing some of the upper branches; cuttling candles on some; pruning some branches back to fit within the desired conical outline.

Others' thoughts on this?

 

[brendonv]

That is exactly whats involved. I don't think you will have a good success rate with just brushing off the candles, I can't see that happening.

 

[mdvaden]

[ QUOTE ]
mdvaden,

Thanks for the photos. The tree looks like a large topiary; I imagine that's the idea. What kind of pine is it?

I'm wondering about the apical meristem . . .. Is it long, throughout the "candle," allowing the branch tip to continue to grow? Or is it on the tip of the candle and being removed when the candle is cut? Also, when the candle is cut, does this cause the remaining portion to produce a new whorl? Or is the whorl already in the making, so to speak, and simply invigorated by removal of the dominant tip?

[/ QUOTE ]

The meristems would be at the end of each candle / shoot. And It seems that cutting it, allows new buds to form, producing a new lower meristem.

Seems a new whorl could be produced, like a cluster of buds at the tip, but often it's just a bud or two.

On that tree, I mainly used shears, some hand cuts, and hand pruned some crud and dead twigs from beneath the clusters so they didn't become too heavy of rats nests.

It even looks better when pruned. The photo is late winter after a weather pounding. Two months later, each "cloud" was more tidy, and a bit more flat-topped.

That one was a shore pine - Pinus contorta. Probably the most common one I see that done to out here.

I think the man paid $9000 for that one back in the late 80s. A transplant from a Beaverton location where a few were developed in a landscape. Personally, I don't like to start this type of pruning, and prune just a few existing ones each year.

The one in the picture, had a dome top when I started, and I could not reach above it - no space for a ladder with the fountain in front, and there is a 14' drop-off behind and to the side. So I dissected the top dome into a few cluster that I could reach through.

Took about 4 hours to do that tree each year.

 

[Shayne Picard]

I found this photo of a branch tip:

It shows multiple candles at the end of one branch. Should each candle be pruned on that branch, or just the central leader?

 

[No_Bivy]

When I prune my Bonsai(black Pine and White Pine) I remove all of them. It forces new buds to grow. You have to do this by hand with scissors. I can't imagine a hedge though....seems absurd unless they arte paying by the hour/

 

[Shayne Picard]

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You have to do this by hand with scissors.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why scissors? Why not pruning shears?

I've read in some places that you can do it by hand (just snap the candle without any tools). What's been the experience with this?

 

[boreality]

For sure it can be done by hand, just like picking berries, timing is important though. So they snap at the worl and don't tear. The christmas tree shapers use a long sharp knife/sword specifically designed for the job, they slash from the top down and work their way around the tree. You see the results in your mall parking lots every December.

 

[mdvaden]

[ QUOTE ]
I found this photo of a branch tip:

It shows multiple candles at the end of one branch. Should each candle be pruned on that branch, or just the central leader?

[/ QUOTE ]

You have several options. If the topiary clouds like the pine I posted, you could shear across all of them, like shearing off the top 2/3s.

If it was more Japanese (not Bonsai)style, you could snap or cut off the central candle, and remove all but one, two or three of the smaller ones, and could even cut the small ones shorter too.

Size of tree is important too. If that pine is big, and you remove all the candles, newer ones are likely to be smaller, with less needles - hence, less food manufacture.

In short...

If I was going to do the pine in your picture - say for my own home - I'd probably remove the center candle, remove all but 3 of the small ones, and possible cut them to half length.

That's actually a very good picture - nice and crisp.