I need a little advice from an experienced Bonsai Artist. I purchased a JBP and it has large up to 6 inch candles on it and a lot of needles. I have been reading and watching a lot of Utubes with Ryan Niel. I am getting a bit confused it seems there are many thoughts about how much to pluck and how to do it. One of Ryan Niel's demonstrations he says that the first thing you should do when you first get a JBP is to cut off all the candles even the ones that did not form and pluck the needles on the whole tree to where there is consistent foliage all over the tree. That kind of makes since to me. That would get all the branches to an even strength. Then when reading I find where I should pluck to 7 to 10 pair on the upper 1/3rd , leave 12 to 15 pair on the middle 1/3rd and 15 to 20 on the bottom 1/3rd and inner branches. So what is correct? The other question is all along the branches there are long needles, should I pluck those also and to what extent? I have read that if you pluck needles on the trunk and branches they may not back bud to those areas. I defenitly need some back budding going on. Help before I screw this thing up. Thanks Don

This post was edited by iamdunn4 on Sun, Dec 9, 12 at 0:18