When working with bonsai, you cannot be unwilling to let go; learning to make choices is key

A Japanese black pine with decent fundamentals, old and small, with rough bark, an elegant trunk posture, and a stable root base, but the trunk is too slender. If there are too many branches, the proportions will become somewhat unbalanced. Of course, the most effective way to thicken the trunk is to use the selected sacrifice branch method to grow out the main trunk. The buds on the side branches are not compact enough, which can be solved by forcing buds or grafting.

Bending, bending the side branches closer to the main trunk to make the tree shape more compact

After bending like this, it becomes somewhat unnatural

The thickness of the two branches on the left is basically almost the same as the thickness of the main trunk, so after re-examining this Japanese black pine, I immediately decided to keep only the first pad branch on the left. This not only solves the proportion imbalance problem analyzed above, but also makes the tree shape more compact. Decisive action, cut, cut, cut!

No willingness to let go, no gain

Cut off

Cut off

Clean and compact

Production complete.....,

Attached practice example images: