The Scots pine below was always going to have issues if left as an informal upright, so I let it go for a couple of years, knowing I’d turn it into a shohin at some stage in the future. Below is a quick progression of it’s redesign from a ‘tallie’ to a ‘shawty’…
Pinus Sylvestris before work, height 64cm
After removing everything above the first branch… Kept the deadwood/jin above first branch as it would come in handy for anchoring guy wires, but it’ll be removed in future.
Looking up into the structure of the first branch, there’s more than enough ramification to create the bones of a nice little shohin.
After shaping. 23cm high. Now to make a nice pot for it…