I took over care of a Japanese red pine in December of 2017 from a very good friend who had the tree for many years. It is an old Koreshoff pine that was grown from seed planted in 1951.

This repot is to try to correct the large and thick roots around the nebari.

Jin and Shari are usually synonymous with coniferous trees. As they age branches succumb to death as apical dominance, severe weather and (sometimes) human interaction causes the resource pathways of a tree to change resulting in branch death or partial trunk death. These natural occurrences happen a lot in our native trees as well, with the eucalyptus and angophora often showing jin and shari.

The substrate must be allowed to partially dry out between watering to allow new roots to develop and start to ‘search’ for moisture. If watered too much the roots will struggle to grow and can develop disease if not remedied.

The nebari, or surface rootage of a bonsai is, in my opinion, the most important and determining feature on a bonsai. After the initial outline or silhouette of the tree, it is the first place most of us will look to when we first gaze upon a bonsai.

A tree will suffer greatly from any period of underwatering, but will survive short periods of overwatering as long as it isn’t chronic. Always better to err on the side of caution.

Refinement is the second stage to growing a bonsai. This stage never ends and as bonsai are living and ever changing, so too refinement changes and shifts over time.