Bonsai Story: Ten Years of Work to Grow a Pine Bonsai

Growing a bonsai basically takes ten years of work. This Scots pine was found by someone in 06 in a crack between rocks in the Alps. Its amazingly twisted shape was impossible to resist, and it took nearly a full day of work to finally dig it out of the rock crevice. When digging up a pine stump, you need to keep as much of the soil ball as possible. An old pine tree like this one would find it very hard to survive if taken down the mountain without its soil ball, so digging up the stump places higher demands on the digger.

After coming down the mountain, it was left to grow freely in a pot. Six years later, work finally began on styling it. Because the trunk of this tree is simply too beautiful, it needed no treatment at all. So the secondary branches were bent appropriately to give the whole tree some compression.

Not long after the bending work was finished, the tree was spotted by a Spanish bonsai artist, who bought it for a high price.

A year later, planning began for its final form. Because there were too many branches, some of the secondary, relatively thick branches were stripped of their bark to create deadwood. The branches were then pruned a bit more, and after wiring, the basic outline was established.

The next task was continuous branch building, pruning, bud pinching, needle plucking and needle shortening. Finally, by 17 it had been developed into the shape shown below, and that year it won Best of Show at the Bonsai San show.