In typical David DeGroot humility, he says of his Japanese Black Pine raft, “Like many of my trees, it has gone through occasional work or restyling followed by long periods of neglect, so it is much younger in its development than its physical age would suggest.”
Many of us could say the same, though we rarely do.
This Japanese Black Pine has had a long and interesting history. It was nursery stock from New Orleans in 1979, an upright tree. And then David brought it to a John Naka workshop.
An early drawing of this pine by John Naka in 1980, whose sketches of where a student’s tree should go became famous in workshops in the 80’s and 90’s.
David’s development notes of this pine:
- 1992 — transplanted in mica tray, still no roots from trunk
- 2001 — began to reduce original rootball
- 2002 — first complete wiring
- 2004 — transplanted to ceramic rectangle – first roots from trunk
- 2018 — restyled with reference to Naka sketch
This is in 2018.
David shared one challenge of this tree. The root mass was on the right, where the longest, oldest branches were, yet John’s drawing had the tree flowing to the right. Which made it imperative that the tallest trunk—to flow to the right—would have to be on the left. Took many years to outgrow the older branches with the younger ones. By 2018 David succeeded, with the main tree clearly larger even though it was one of the younger ones.
After restyling with new front, 2018. David removed 3 trunks from the group and cut back the top of the tree on the far left.
In 2022.
David writes, “By 2021, more of the tree [on the left] had died, leaving only the bottom branch. In 2022, I carved down the root mass on the right and repotted the raft. In the following months the tree on the left died completely. On removing it, I found that wire used to bend it up when the raft was first designed had girdled to the point that it had basically pruned the trunk below the soil line. I replaced it with a seedling.”
Carving down the bump of the original base.
Here is the pine in 2025, at the Portland Japanese Garden, where it is presently on display. If you visit the Garden and wish to see it, it’s in the hidden garden behind the admin building. Go in, up the steps, and out the big glass door.