Pinus nigra ‘Brepo’

Tough, easy, beautiful. No wonder they're so sort after.

They seem to fit in to almost any type of garden (particularly Japanese), can be clipped and shaped (cutting off some of the undercarriage to expose the trunk and branch structure always works well) and the only disadvantage is that you get covered in sticky pine resin as a result. Wash it off. A small price to pay.

After many years (40?) this can become a beautiful gnarled multitrunked Japanese-looking tree 10 ft high by 12 ft wide.

When shaping, cut off the 'candles' (the young shoots), not the needle-less branches. If you want to remove an entire branch, that's fine but otherwise, stick to the young growth.

There seems to be some confusion over the name : this is a dwarf form of a hybrid between Pinus nigra (Austrian Pine) and Pinus densiflora (Japanese Red Pine) produced in the 1980 by a French Swiss nurseryman called Henri Bregeon and he named it after his son(?) Pierrick Bregeon. It was subsequently produced in huge quantities by a nursery in Oregon who found their customers struggled with the pronunciation so took it upon themselves to rename it Brepo. Presumably a kind of abbreviated anagram of its original name. Or something.

Propagated by cuttings.

N.B. When clipping several plants with the same tool, have a bucket containing a 5% bleach solution and swish your blades around for 30 seconds between plants to sterilise them. This will help avoid the chance of cross contamination of disease.

As with all woody plants, plant high, exposing as much of the taper at the base of the trunk as possible. Allowing soil to accumulate round the base of a tree can be fatal. Keep very well watered when first planted.