Pinus nigra - development in five years

It's been quite a while since I last posted here, but some time ago I was working on this black pine and I thought it's something worth sharing. I have this pine for five years, and I think it's making a nice progress. Now that I looked back at pictures made in 2005, really it was not much of a sight, but still somehow I liked it a lot back then - and ever since.

Lets start with the current picture, not to scare away my readers :)

When I wired it this time, I have bandaged the branches with strips of cloth to keep the bark from scarring. I looks kind of stupid but it was done for the future...

And now how it looked like originally in 2005:


I have first styled it in 2005, removed the inner needles and pruned it back, shortening the branches above the buds.


In 2006 I have worked on it again, removed the old needles and wired it. Looking at the change now, it's pretty scary how little green was left, but fortunately the tree responded well to this drastic styling. I have planted it in this massive rectangular pot by Zoltan File. It's way too large, but the roots were a mass and I didn't want to stress the tree too much. Btw. it matches with the masculine image of this black pine. Unfortunately I have realized that I have not potted it optimally and decided that the new front shoould be the one in this photo, featuring the curves of the trunk.


In 2009, exactly a year ago: