Oregon Green Austrian Pine - Spring Candle Growth - April 2026

I planted a small, ball-and-burlap Oregon Green Austrian Pine tree in our front yard in the Fall of 2024.  This came one year after my big "Fall Planting" sprint in Fall of 2023 when I had so much success with evergreens/conifers.    I wrote a 'Getting to Know' post about this tree and talked about how it will reach a 10' height in ten years and has an open-branching look.  But, it also has some of the best 'candles' of all the conifers.  

Last May, I posted some photos showing off the candles emerging for the first Spring in our garden.  In that post, I talked about how some folks choose to prune those candles to keep the tree more compact.  

Here below are a few photos showing the current state of this tree and the current set of candles.  

Spring Candles on Oregon Green Austrian Pine

Candle'ing - the pruning of these candles - typically focuses on removing or shortening the 'dominant candle'.  Others, like the folks at the Bloedel Reserve take a two-year approach to their pine pruning process:

Pine pruning at Bloedel follows a two-year cycle:

• Year one: The candles are cut in half to encourage shorter, denser branching.
• Year two: The candles are fully removed to maintain the tree’s compact, stylized form.

Each cluster of candles typically contains a dominant central shoot (often female) surrounded by smaller secondary shoots. If left untrimmed, the central candle would grow into a long, straight branch, with the surrounding candles developing into side shoots—ultimately creating a less controlled, more natural shape.

This being the trees second full growing season, I'm thinking I'm going to do NOTHING right now.  No pruning of the candles in 2026 because I still want to see the tree put on some size.