Transforming a Pine Into a bonsai

In this video I take a Scots Pine that has been growing in the fields and show you the process to create a nice Bonsai.

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🎹 Music is from imovie and is called Newborn

I have here a very interesting tree very often you come across a difficult problem and you want to just put it off and put it off because it is difficult to solve this is one of those instances I tell you why it is a difficult tree the tree is difficult for one main reason and it’s because of this PO Tre this tree I’ve been growing on the nursery maybe for the last 15 or 20 years it was a small bances graphed tree and it’s become big like this and I think it had another trunk which you can see here which I cut off at some point and let one of these brunches go from here not only that there was a bit of WI which was embedded here so it’s made a bulge here so that’s made it uh looking bad so with this tree there is a beautiful Bonsai lying somewhere in the middle but I’ve got to find the solution for the tree so with a tree like this the easy way out would be to get rid of this cut that off I’ll show you what I inan so using my back trick if I get rid of it it can be made a nice slating tree with just one side and then we can just wire these branches but I’m convinced that I can do something with this part of the tree there is something inherently beautiful about this so let us see what what we can do as it stands the branch going that way looks off I need to bring it back on itself so that it is a much tighter formation it is possible to bend it but how much I can bend it remains to be seen so to bring it right back without breaking it and I’ve mentioned before that Ban’s trees are not like the ory Scotch Pines this is a Scotch pine but the dwarf Scotch pine they are very brittle in the branches so in order to bend it I will have to do all sorts of Tricks this part is probably a bit too difficult to bend but I think this is possible to bend so let me see what I can do to bend it and bring it back on it itself okay one of the ways of bending is by splitting the trunk so I’m going to use a trunk splitter and see if by splitting the trunk I can get some movement on the bronze now this is a huge bronze splitter it is a huge Japanese bronze splitter I don’t know you can see it’s made in Japan it’s not often I use it but that comes a point when I do use it and this is one of those instances so I’m going to try and split the branch here to see if by splitting it I can get some [Music] movement [Music] I was one was told by a doctor who’s a surgeon that these sort of tools are used for breaking bones or resetting bones not that I’m going to try and do it on someone but these sort of tools are used in surgery so if any of you who are doctors watching it you can perhaps give me some feedback okay that now let me get rid of some of these proud bits sticking out and see if that makes any difference as we say if you don’t try you won’t know [Music] if you remember last year or was it maybe 18 months ago I did a large which was dead straight I Did It For My friend Josh who usually does the filming and he tells me that that lotch is doing extremely well thing which was absolutely straight we were able to bend it into a nice s shape I will show you that tree we go okay there is some movement I can feel now I’ve only split it in one plane that mean I’ve done it this way I’m now going to do a quadrant that means I’m going to split it the other way at 90° and see what happens this tool is so sharp it may look Rusty but the blades are almost like a razor I hope the sound of the rain doesn’t spoil this video but I feel I have to do something because it’s been raining so much the rain never stops I’ll never get a chance to video if I stop doing it I’ve got a smaller Brown splitter but I don’t think the small bronze splitter is man enough to do the job [Music] okay now let’s see if it can bend a bit you can see how it’s moving can you see can you see the movement on there it is absolutely flexible by doing that I couldn’t even move it an inch but by doing that Branch splitting I’m able to get movement from that Branch so the next thing to do is to put a piece of wire on that uh this bulge worries me so I may have to get rid of some of that I like carving or whatever but I will deal with that in a minute but I think I can do the anchoring by putting the wire into the into the soil and then getting it to bend okay so I get some wi we to use a wire something like 7 or 8 mil and looking through my pile of used wire I came across this which I thought was copper wire for to begin with you see there’s copper corrosion there and this is only aluminium wire but when I started cutting it I realized that this is some of my recycled electric wire and in inside here is that mineral it’s a insulation for those of you who are electricians will know that many years ago about 20 30 years ago there was a wire called micc that means mineral covered copper wire so can you look closely and see there are two cables in there there are two cables in there and this is the insulation the white insulation so this is just electric wire recycle that I’m using so I’m a great one for recycling so there’s no harm using it so let’s try and put this piece of wire I’m going to save these little branches as well okay so let’s see if this does the job okay I just thought that because I split it so much I should probably tape it or put ra here so let me put some tape around it tape and ra here are all the same things you can use whatever you wish as you know I’m a great one for improvising I don’t insist that you have to use this or that just because everyone else uses it but this works I don’t think you necessarily need to use it but it may help it I think it may help it from splitting and not only that because I’ve exposed the wood it might lead to some infection although I’m not a great believer in these trees getting infected so easily these Pines heal themselves and because it’s a pine the resin from the pine actually acts as a sealant so the resin seals the wood okay so now let’s try and put the wire on and see if we can get a Bend out of it these three little branches seem to be quite promising I will use it in part of the design now mind you when I go about creating these trees I don’t have any fixed ideas to what the eventual design will turn out to be I just go with the floow it’s my way of doing things other people like to draw an image and then try and design the tree to fit that image each one does their own way but this is the way that works for me and I’m quite happy to do it this way okay now let’s put a double coil because I’m fairly sure that one piece of wi is not sufficient to bend this trunk the key part of this tree is really getting this odd Branch to bend and make into something nice looking once I can bend it the rest will be easy as they say for you can hear the robin singing Here years ago I had a robin that used to follow me around but I think that poor Robin died I don’t know how long Robins Liv but this fellow seems to be living in this greenhouse and hopefully it’ll come close and become a companion again okay I put that on now let’s see if I can brend it what we call the moment of truth let’s see what which way I can bend it this way or that way there’s nothing rehearsed should it break and snap that will be it I will have to just accept it for what it is I bented that way I don’t like I can make it come up on itself got it to do that so far rather than go out it hasn’t broken so far okay the next stage is trying to bend that part I think I can do something with that so I’m going to get another Branch splitter this time I use a smaller Brown splitter and I’m going to split this section cuz I’m going to bend the top part as I said the bances is brutal if it was a scotch spine it would be far simpler and easier to bend [Music] okay is improvisation is the name of the game just improvise and do what works for you okay I’m trying to save these three skinny branches as much as possible and I’m going to make a head with this I’ve got quite an interesting curve can you imagine that was going straight out I managed to get this curve here I bent this and I bent this so I’ve got two bends there rather than one straight Branch so let me work on this and then this side is easy this I think just by cleaning it up and wiring virtually all the branches I should get a very interesting result so this is not the problem the problem is on the other side while I’m snipping away I’m thinking and seeing what I can do there are branches like that can you see how this triangular shape can be very easily created by doing this so this is not difficult this is not difficult very simple okay let’s concentrate on this side I’m going to get some wire and do some wiring so we switch up for a while while I so you can see that I put a coil of aluminum uh this is 4 and 1/2 mil water and I’m going to give more shape to this I can make use of these little branches which I’m sure will be very very useful for the design of the tree this is just the Anchor Point for some reason reason I’m more or less resigned to having this as the front because this side somehow looks better than this side this side is bit odly there so I’m aiming to work from this side as the front so going with the floor you see how the curve is going this way so I’m just going to emphasize the curve more you notice that when there’s a possibility of breaking I grip the branch with the palms of my hand so I can feel it cracking and when I feel feel it cracking I should stop little Bender tightening the whole package as it were and making it more compact helps with the design okay trying to bring it a bit closer even more and then I’m going to water these branches to get this s of effect can you see I’ve got a small B of here now like that with those gangly branches so this is what I’m going to do so I’m going to put some more W on these and then I’ll show it to you again okay so I put wire on uh 1 2 three four of the branches so let’s give it some shap I have every faith that they will butt back these long shoots may appear long now but give it a couple of years it will Bud back nicely so what was a gangly part of this tree with these three or four very insignificant branches has become pretty interesting that’s why I was reluctant to discard it the easy way out would be to just cut it off and forget about it and just concentrate on the right hand side but I was determined to use it so let us see what transpires so you can see it’s got the makings of a potential Bonsai just on this side alone just this side alone I’m going to do a little more B more refining and I’ll be there so I’ll leave that there so that is potentially interesting worse come to wor if it doesn’t fit I’ll have to modify this side accordingly so let’s now look at the right hand side it hasn’t taken that much time I’ve only spent like 25 minutes so far and I’ve already got there so now I need to make this side much more interesting and this side could end up something like this so I’m going to now have to design this side it’s rather congested on this side so I have to reduce it a little bit to get an interesting Crown so this is what I’m going to water so the rest is just wiring you can see what is happening there the rest is just wiring so let me wire some of these and then show it to you again and then we’ll see how it relates to this side okay so I will leave off for a while while I do some wiring we have created quite a difference it is beginning to look like a tree you would find growing in nature with the twim trunk coming quite high like this you often find pines like this so I need to balance this side with that side it’s a bit too dense there so I don’t know whether to use some of these branches to make it Fuller like that or not I put a wire all the way to the top so that I can give more twist can you see how this is twisted like that that effect I want and I’m going to wire a little more it’s a bit too dense at the back so I’m not sure whether I need all of that so that part I might see if I use that it might make it too dense looking so I might have to get rid of that or thin out quite considerably so there’s quite a lot that has to go so like these branches I certainly don’t think I need that on so I’m going to get this one off look at that getting that’s the first Branch I’ve cut that’s the first Branch I’ve cut and then these ones I can bring tight like this but probably this side don’t need so I’ll get rid of this one this one could possibly come here like that so I’ll wire this in place I’ll keep that but this I probably don’t need so I’m going to cut that off this also I think is superpose I get rid of that and because I’ve got such a lot there I probably don’t even need that I don’t need that need that and I’ll wire these flat to see how it looks and then if it looks right I’ll keep it if it doesn’t look right I’ll get rid of it so I think it’s now just the question of wiring all the fine barges like so can you see the effect look from here and then you can get a better idea as to what the tree looks like so it’s all a question of doing fine wiring so that I will do later on after I’ve put all the fine wires on to arrange them into pads and then I will show you the thing again all right so I’ve been working on this tree for the last couple of days and you will have traced this the progress of this tree so this branch which is coming way out like this I brought it back in to mirror the effect of it so it’s like a twin trunk and although it looks a bit Spar here it would fill out this is the main side of the tree but I feel that I know that at present this is more dense than this but this will fill out but looking at the tree all the branches are in the right place but there’s still too much I feel so this is the culprit over there let me bring the bag and show you the Peter CH bag trick and see if you look from the front again if I can put the bag there I want to maybe get rid of that so it doesn’t look so cluttered the others are okay so I’ll do it in stages so here it goes take that off take take that off take that [Music] off in fact I haven’t taken much of this tree at all from the whole tree this is all I’ve taken off so far that’s all not a great deal so I’ve just done wiring a lot of wiring made the pads this I wasn’t sure but I will keep it and I might Jin that but if I don’t Jin it I’ll just cut it off completely so that is how the tree is shaping out I could even because this is repotting season I’m going to get a nice micro pot going to tease the roots put in a microport I I’ll take a picture again when it’s all ported up so there you go it’s almost 90% finished I’m just showing you the root ball these trees have been growing on the nursery for the last 15 to 20 years and in those days we used to use a Pete type soil and I just used to uh put fine potting grit we used to use a lot of grit called Chichester grit so Chichester grit and Pete was the type of compost we used and the tree thrives in that so it’s a bit pot bound but look at the roots very very healthy root and I’m now going to put it into a mic drum pot I chose two po pots and you’ve always got to put the tree against the pot so I’ve used the slightly smaller one because the big one would look too big so when I’ve potted it up I will show it to you again so here we are I potted it in a micro poot I think that’s the right size for it and this is the tree the angle of planting was quite critical just a few degrees either way might not be quite right the trees not perfect as I say this bulge here worries me I’ll will probably carve it down we do something with it but from what was almost an impossible tree with the left hand Branch sticking out almost like 120° I brought it back to about almost 45° so it’s like a twin trunk not quite a Literati because Literati would be more sparse than this but nevertheless it’s a nice tree and Pines do grow like this in the British Countryside the Scot spines have this habit of growing so I hope you’ve enjoyed this video [Music]