I thought I'd share a few pics of my pine corner where I basically grow a variety of different pines to eventually develop and train as bonsai. I have a few more in the beds and one that's too big to lug about as well as stuff from seed or garden centres. There's black and white pines, scots and mugos.
White pine shohin with large apical sacrifice now slowly being reduced to develop the trunk and branches below. The sacrifice was about 3 ft high. The height of the small tree in front is about 5 inches. The top has kept the keeper branches & internodes small and will be in scale when the tree image is finished - I can build a well ramified image as the foliage is still very close to the trunk. I bought this tree from a garden centre 3 years ago for £10 at a sale. It has a bigger brother in the front garden being grown on.
The one below was from garden centre material then grown in the beds for a few years. It's just been transferred to a pot this season after living in a pond basket for a few years hence the funky planting angle. The upward jutting root will be removed in 3 years during it's next repot. This tree needs a few more years to develop the apex and increased ramification will reduce needle size. I won't feed this tree as much as the others in need of bulking up.
Here's another tree from garden centre stock that's just started it's journey to become an informal upright - basically using the same process I used for the tree above. The top has been chopped to push vigour back down the tree and this season I've got it in a free draining mix of pumice & moler (50/50). I use a half bare root technique to change out garden centre potting compost - the 'back' half will be done next season if it responds well.
2 overthick sacrifice branches have been retained to keep the tree vigourous. As the smaller keeper branches bulk up these sacrifices will be removed. All foliage on pines contribute to the global health of the tree - they power the roots. We can then use candle / shoot pruning and needle cutting to tell the tree where to send resources.
Here's a shot of some of the smaller shoots - you can see the backbudding that resulted from the chop. It's these smaller shoots we want as they can be developed into convincing bonsai branches. The thickest branch in this pic is unusable and will be removed later - avoid getting pines that have long,thick, bare branches with large internodes - the probability of backbudding decreases with a branch's age. There are a lot of small shoots we can use on this pine to build it into a bonsai, especially at the back. I will keep them all viable and see which is the best trunk line to take further into it's development - I can see 3 options at present but it's best to keep them all open until I'm sure which one is best - no rush. When you get the backbudding you want it's important you keep heading back the apical candle otherwise the buds will wither & die so cut in July to force energy back down the branch.
Scots pines from seed. The one on the right has had a bit of shape wired in and I've successfully kept the lower sacrifices vigourous by keeping the tops cut back. I'm happy to let the tops grow now and hopefully i can continue to bulk up the base. Next year it will be strong enough to go in the ground and it's basic structure (shape, 1st branch and sacrifices) are in place. The left one is getting some basic shaping done down low and a top sacrifice is going to be used - the 2 lowest branches will be wired up and these will form the first branch and next trunk section.
I love growing stuff from scratch - here's a white pine from seed I took from a white pine I'm ground growing in my front garden - I might just about make a tree out of it before I pop my clogs
The base of a black pine seedling grown in a blue greengrocer's crate (free, excellent training pots if you put some mesh inside) - some of the pics I took of the top sacrifice and the next trunk section haven't uploaded to 'bucket - I'll do them again tomorrow. Black pines are tough & vigourous - this one is 5/6 years old.
Hope you enjoyed Pash's pine corner
