collect pitch pine

sweetgum_master

Hi all,
For those of you who collect Pitch pine I would like to of some good collecting areas for 2 reasons my club is going to collecting yamidori and wanting to help find some pitch pines. the other reason is finding Quercus marilandica - Blackjack Oak quoted from wikipedia. since they sometimes grow near pitch pines I could probably find some nice stunted oaks

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rockm

Pitch pine is probably not a native of your area, if you're in coastal N.C. Its range hugs the Appalachians into Western N.C. It is a coastal tree only in N.J and northward. It grows on higher, sun exposed slopes in the mountains of Va. in higher elevations. If you want to collect one in N.C, good luck, as they're probably in National Parks in the Blue Ridge.

If you're collecting in coastal N.C., loblolly pine (pinus Taeda) and longleaf pine are probably the local candidates. I've not collected loblolly, but there are a few people in the South that are working with them. I think someone posted a photo of one here a while back...

sweetgum_master

rockm,

with the areas for collecting pitch pine that is one of the pines that we(the club) will be collecting; So I would think the people interested in them are going to be willing to drive a little ways but probably not much further than NJ.

rockm

So you're going to drive north to collect pitch pine? Pitch pine grows in the Va. Blue Ridge, but those areas are protected National Forests and you will probably have a very hard time getting permits to collect them. Farther North in Maryland and Pennsylvania things are similiar. You might contact Jim Doyle at Nature's Way Bonsai for collecting advice. He's dug Pitch Pine and might be able to provide sources for them.

Good luck.

For what it's worth, besides the difficulty you may encounter in getting someone to allow collection, you will also probably encounter difficulty in having a pitch pine collected in New Jersey recover in N.C.

Collecting pines is not as easy as collecting deciduous trees. If you have no experience in collecting, pines can be a very tall order. Aftercare is more crucial to their recovery. Getting any tree out of the ground is only 1/4 of the battle. The other 3/4 is keeping the tree alive for two years after you dig it.

I tend to look closer to home for species to collect. Here in the Southeast, we have a treasure trove of promising species to keep us busy. For instance, in coastal and Piedmont N.C. (and Va. in most cases) there are Willow oak (quercus phellos), black haw (Viburnum), coastal live oak (quercus virginiana), Carolina hornbeam and hophornbeam, American beech, Bald Cypress, black cherry (prunus serotina), Carolina silverbell (Halesia tetraptera), hackberry and sugarberry (celtis laevigata), elm (American, wahoo, and others), holly (Ilex decidua), black gum tupelo (nyssa sylvatica), honeysuckle, wild rose, wisteria, highbush blueberry, bittersweet, Virginina pine, and sassafras, just to name a few that have proven to make very nice bonsai. All are pretty common from Maryland down to South Carolina.

sweetgum_master

Actually that is just the thing my club going collecting for kinds of stuff; I'm interested in looking at everything but I may come back having not even collected one plant, What I collect Is dependent on the quality, survivability etc. of the material. I'm just curious were pitch pines can be found since I might collect some if the material is good and I found out that black jack oaks(which is what I'm really after) can be found near pitch pines. I'm really only asking because I might find a nice stunted oak to go with my current one which is 15-20 years and under 1.5'. The finding of areas to collect pitch pines(and hopefully stunted oaks) is just a matter of making it easier for me to find an oak by collecting from the same area.

Vance Wood

Some of the best I have seen have come out of up state New York, I cannot tell you precisely where.

You have seen many of the down sides to collecting this side of the Mississippi, the other major issue is the reluctance any one who has a favorite dig site to openly share it with anyone let alone on an open forum read by God knows how many people. Good Yamadori are not common or abundant and anyone who knows where they can find a number of them for themselves will probably not say.

__________________
The only finished bonsai is a dead one; me 1992 MABA Des Moines Iowa

rockm

If there is one thing I've learned in collecting, it's not to go out looking for a specific species, or for "stunted" trees. You will invariably not find a decent example of the species you're looking for and "natural" stunted trees are EXTREMELY rare.

I go out looking for TRUNKS, not trees. I look at the first three feet of a tree--even if it's 50 feet tall. If that first three or four feet is good, I then move onto what species it is and then consider digging complications. Species is about third on the list for collectibility. Some species specific growth habits may not be terrific, but alot of them can be worked with--it depends on the trunk.

As for black jack oaks, they're pretty common from NJ southward along the coastal plain. It may live with pitch pine, but it is common all over the Southeast in coastal areas where pitch pine is absent. I'd not consider them really viable candidates, as there are much better oak species to work with. They have extremely large leaves that don't reduce well. Like some white oak species, bonsai cultivation techniques, like hard pruning, can make leaves come in larger than normal.

Live oak and willow oak are both better and more common bonsaiable candidates than black jack oak, I think. Both willow oak and live oak are underused species that has naturally small leaves that reduce even further. They also have very shallow root systems, at least alot shallower than the majority of oak species. That makes even larger specimens easier to collect.

sweetgum_master

You bring up a good point about not many people being willing to share there collecting spots.

Rockm,
I know that some pitch pines are stunted in the certain areas I'm just curious where those areas are particularly the ones that also have oaks and also you say that stunted trees are rare come down here I will show you about 15 or so dwarfed oaks less than 0.1 miles from my house but none of them are worth collecting though(good stunted trees are fairly rare though). An easy way to find dwarf oaks is to look in full sun areas right next to pine trees, I found 2 trees less than 2' away from each other. So I would guess that where there is pitch pines that are stunted there then any oaks that are there are probably bound to be stunted too; That is way I'm asking

Also If I were to have a better idea of what growing conditions cause stunted oaks that would help as well. But in any case I don't think I'm getting any where fast by arguing about what to collect and where it is just a matter of where can I find stunted pitch pines with blackjack oaks nearby so I might be able to collect both at the same time. And as for leaf reduction for blackjack oaks I have seen the leaves as small as about 1" in the wild usually closer to 2"; It makes me wonder if the oaks where I live really are a dwarf subspecies with as many small oaks that are here

rockm

"I'm just curious where those areas are particularly the ones that also have oaks and also you say that stunted trees are rare come down here I will show you about 15 or so dwarfed oaks less than 0.1 miles from my house but none of them are worth collecting though(good stunted trees are fairly rare though)."

Don't have to. I've seen my share of uncollectable stunted trees. I should've said "natural" bonsai are extremely rare. Stunted trees have to be worth collecting for our purposes.

An easy way to find alot of weathered species is to look in more sun exposed areas, period. Sun and wind exposed areas produce stressed trees, regardless of species.

"But in any case I don't think I'm getting any where fast by arguing about what to collect and where it is just a matter of where it is just a matter of where can I find stunted pitch pines with blackjack oaks nearby so I might be able to collect both at the same time. And as for leaf reduction for blackjack oaks I have seen the leaves as small as about 1" in the wild usually closer to 2"; It makes me wonder if the oaks where I live really are a dwarf subspecies with as many small oaks that are here"

Oy vay. You're not really picking up on what I'm saying. Finding where to collect the very narrow range of trees you're after is probably impossible. You're looking for convenience so you can collect two species at the same time? Yeah, I'd like Guiness on tap when I dig trees... (sorry, couldn't resist)

Beyond the hard fact you're probably not going to find anyone that will cough up a select collection site (and if there are dwarfed oaks and pines all in one place, or even one of them, you can bet it's a choice collection site), your focus on two species that occur only incidentally in their range further limits your possible candidates. Broaden your horizons. See the forest AND the trees.

As for leaf reduction in the wild, don't count on it in a container. In collecting a tree that shows particular traits like small leaves in the ground you most likely free it from the localized conditions that dwarfed those leaves. In a container things will be completely different. Dwarfed leaves are usually NOT genetically induced. They are most likely induced by environmental conditions, like a high water table, low soil pH, grazing by animals, etc.

I'm not trying to be "right" here. I'm just trying to show you that there is a pretty big menu of species to choose from right under your nose. All you have to do is look a little more closely. I don't know your club situation, but the clubs I've been involved with all have local connections to collection sites and they make regular collecting trips in the spring. If yours doesn't, call another to ask what they've got going...