Is it a Pine or a Pomeranian?

Victrinia_Ensor

Some may have seen my pinus parviflora glauca before... This is not it's BT debut by any means... however I do find myself well into my first year with it. It's been a very interesting experiance thus far...

First there was the terror of actually deciding to trunk chop it last winter...

Then it seemed like something out of a movie... "Candles We don't need no stickin candles!!"

This spring after being reduced by half over the winter, the buds I had left, all opened and then made needles without growing a single candle. All I got was lots and lots of new needle growth....

Now we're in summer and all the needle growth has finished growing... But I find now that I have a tree that looks more like a pomeranian than a JWP. What is up with all the outragous needle growth this year? any thoughts on how to prevent that. I mean it's like the antithesis of what I am trying to do here... I want the lil darlins to reduce, not get three times longer than last years growth.

I'm going to defoliate this fall. Can't have a JWP looking like it's having a bad hair day for the next few years.

The photos show the new growth... the lil needles which are about 1/3 the size of the new growth, are last years growth. My hand, which is larger than an average female's, is in the pic to help put it in perspective.

The tree is about 2.5 ft tall... I think it's in a 25 gallon pot, it's huge. The tree was originally 4.5 feet tall. I'm want to pot it up next year... really lookin forward to that.

Btw this may be a silly question... but the picture where you can see some buds in the midst of the new needles... are those next years buds? Those popped up in the last month. Or is it trying to push more new growth?

I am happy that it seems very healthy to me. It's as beautiful a blue green as I could ask for througout it's canopy.

Oh... and for those who have seen this particular tree before.... I changed fronts. And thats probably why it looks so different. (aside from the insanely long needles of course)

Kind Regards,

Victrinia

Attached Images

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	pomeranianpine.jpg (67.2 KB, 84 views)
	pomeranianpineshortneedles.jpg (65.0 KB, 28 views)

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Ms. Vic

Le belle cose prendono tempo...

www.elandangardens.com

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gregb

Ms Vic--while I don't keep any Japanese white pines, I have a couple of western whites collected from the wild down in Arizona, plus several Mexican pinyon pines that look and grow very much like the white pines. Judging by the photos you posted (this is the first time I've seen this tree) you have a fairly young tree; probably around 10 to 15 yrs. tops. When they are this young, the needles do all sorts of things that don't look anything like what we see in Bonsai Today. Your tree is behaving quite normally for a teen-ager

You are keeping it healthy, that's the important thing. You may want to do a little needle thinning this fall (and yes, those are next year's buds) go ahead with your plan to pot it up if that's what you want to do--if this were my tree, I'd give it a year or two more in the pot it's in. If you're into white pine bonsai, why not get another one that is even older and get Mr. De Groot to help you along with it

Victrinia_Ensor

Interestingly enough... This was the first investment tree that I ever bought. Previous to that I was buying lil shrubs and trees etc... and then scratchin my head trying to think of why they seemed soooo small compared to what I have seen in pics.

This one was daunting enough to chop down considering how tall it was when I bought it. It was taller than I (in the pot).... it is not anymore...lol Unless I found something that already had a lot of bonsai work invested into it, the growth structure on a larger tree would not end up being useful to me. But you know that of course...

I don't mind putting in the time to get this one rollin along. I never expected to be anywhere near finished with it until at least a decade or so rolled by.

I find it amusing to think it's acting like a normal teenager... thats a funny way to put it.

As to the repotting... I don't know how long it has been in this pot. I suspicion it has been there a while. So I am concerned about it staying in the pot undisturbed for much longer. I also would not be adverse to plugging it into the ground in a controlled fashion (ie. planting it with tiles under it to get the roots to fan out)... What are your thoughts?

Oh... and since I bought this tree... I have learned a thing or ten about pickin good stock. I would of never bought this tree to begin with, had I known what I know now. It's structure was all wrong, and frankly I doubt it's JBP base will ever let the JWP graft catch up to it. So I will restrict my playing with white pines to this particular tree... There are a good many other species I don't even have that I would enjoy.

But if I did pick up another one... you betcha I would ask David's advice. He is very generous that way. And he is a marvelous teacher to boot. I have a tree I'm going to take to him later in the month as it is.

Kind regards,

Victrinia

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Ms. Vic

Le belle cose prendono tempo...

www.elandangardens.com