guffmeister

Oh, don't worry, I realise that a lot of written work on the internet is aimed at trees much more developed than my little seedlings. I have a number of trees all at varying levels of development, so I can appreciate that my seedlings aren't quite as developed as my oldest ones, and I can also appreciate what Chris was saying about trying to get the seedlings in a good state to work with. I have a fair understanding of the methods used on pines, but I haven't had too much experience. It seems you can read about pruning, pinching, de-candling, etc, etc all year round, but you only get a month or two a year to practice it in.

My follow-up e-mail was just to ask about whether or not my rooting idea would work, because I have been discouraged from the cutting method just due to the fact I think its a little too touch-and-go whether the plants pull through half the time, and I was trying to find a more guaranteed option to good nebari. I don't know why, but I can't seem to find places that sell hundreds of pine seedlings, like from the bigraphies and stories I read on the net. Is that just an American thing, or do they sell pines in bulk like that in Britain? I only get 10-20 pine seeds, let alone seedlings to work on, so I can't risk losing them half the time, especially when I forget about them and plant them in the middle of summer...duh.