This pine has seen some work lately. It was found to be pretty weak in the state I purchased it. after a work session with Ted Matson, it was decided to repot the tree now into a better soil as the root ball was incased in mud. Ted felt that the season was good to repot now since the tree had no new buds and was literally in fall dormancy. It was potted in a ponding basket.
There is still enough good weather left this fall ( still in the high 80's and low 90's this week) to probably see if the repot sparks some movement.
The tree was also fall needle plucked to induce budding on the branch tips to ramify those areas. Basicly each branchlet ends in a single tuft of needles rather than fork. I need more tips.
Ted also let me know that this was not a black pine, but an Austrian pine. Needles will be shorter, as well as the color lighter and the growth slower. He did not feel that the low amount of buds on the trees was any reason to get excited since these pines will bud differently than JPB. The buds look like small pione cones that have dried up. But closer inspection, via TEd showed me that indeed there needles there, they are just almost microscopic. So I wasn't totally void of buds, just not very many.
I have time here so I won't push any design issues yet. We did tag all the branches for removal and I will show that later this weekend.