Until a couple of years ago, I’d never worked with Limber Pine, one of our North American white pines. It’s growing on me. Buds back well, nice short needle, strong. Has a nice name, Limber Pine, which comes more trippingly off the tongue than Loblolly Pine, for instance. And it has great deadwood features.

This Limber Pine was styled in a Seasonal Workshop a couple of weeks ago. It was collected by a student of mine, Steve Varland of Backcountry Bonsai, who was able to be in the Seasonal to help style it. Loads of fun!

Photo essay follows our journey with this tree-

Limber Pine from one side…

…and from the other side.

And a couple of shots of the base, with the ‘helix’ roots.

Other side.

We discovered that a large area of the trunk was dead. That is, not obviously dead. We might call it ‘pre-shari’…