No turning back

David Quintana works on a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris)

- David Quintana

David was challenged by a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) that was fully overgrown and so had lost its old character. Less is more sounds a cliché, but was proven to be very true, as he found out during the work.

The design of a bonsai is a complicated matter, in which we are faced with a tree with a multitude of branches. We must decide which branches are going to be useful and which have to be pruned. Perhaps, of all the options, the most drastic and risky is to carry out a styling with only one branch, because if you make a wrong decision, there is no possibility of taking another branch to make a new design.

In the specific case of this pine tree, which was collected in 2006, I had been hesitating for a few years between two different possibilities. The first one kept almost all the branches, but after a couple of times working on this possibility, the tree still did not convince me as it lacked taper and movement at the top.

The other possibility was to eliminate the whole crown and keep only one branch, with good movement, a lot of character and creating good taper in the trunk, but as I said, the problem with this design was that if I made a wrong decision, there was no turning back...

In those years (starting in 2009) in which I worked most on the 'save' option, that is, keeping all the branches. I took the opportunity to plant the tree in a pot and eliminate the old soil for the perfect development of the tree's health. But the tree was gaining maturity and still had the same problem - lack of taper and movement after the first bend. It was time to spring into action and study new and more daring designs.

Looking at a new design