Pine pruning inspiration from Seattle’s Japanese Garden

At Seattle’s Japanese Garden, there’s a stand of (probably Mugo) pines that are somewhat of a size with the shore pine I’m attempting to train. I have on my calendar that this time of year is appropriate to make heavier cuts, so I was curious to try to figure out how they prune theirs. the main pine we looked at because it was closest to the trail so we could see better I was trying to understand where and when they cut — this year’s cuts are still bright — and how large the branches were when they were cut as a proxy for when they made that decision. For larger branches that were removed, we guessed why they decided to cut it. it seemed that most of the trees had 3-4 branches at each whorl, though sometimes one you can see the crown where the leader was cut and the branches trained outwards I was surprised how much they guided the tree to grow zigzag patterns, both upwards and sideways (by keeping side shoots or upshoots instead of the central stem) — and that they looked good! I’ve…