Japanese White pine is a relatively simple plant to maintain. When we apply invasive pine techniques to White pine we usually end up weakening them. For starters, cutting green old needles off White pine is not a great idea. The tree rarely has the energy to respond positively to this, and it’s better to let the needles start to yellow naturally, and pull them off in middle of summer through fall when they come off easily. Right about now, in fact.

Lots of trees are pretty complicated and fall work on them is quite involved. Black pine is one of them, or any of the several pines that you might cut the candle on in mid-spring and have regrowth to manage in the fall. White pine is in another group, which only grows once a year and so there is less to do in the fall. The other pines that…