Garden center EWP "Nana"

This tree was abandoned at an out-of-business nursery for over 9 months. I got permission to collect it and brought it home last November. (Pic #1)

I wasn't sure if I was going to bonsai this or add it to my landscape. I heeled it into a mulch pile to overwinter, and this spring I was rewarded with lots of new growth. I pinched off any candles that were growing straight out figuring to direct the growth sideways and stop any further lengthening of the branches. The end of each shoot had 3-5 candles, and I only pinched one from each bunch.

Lately the tree has been in decline and it looks like the candles have died. So I thought it was time to pot or plant it in the ground. I poked around in the rotted burlap rootball and found some extremely hard soil. So hard in fact that I at first thought I was hitting roots. After a bit of work I found that the entire bottom of this pine rootball was hollow. Around the outside of the ball were many dead and dried out roots. (Pic #2)

I just kept scratching until I ended up with a pretty small rootball for a tree of this size. So of course, I decided to bonsai it. I was expecting to see some Mycorrhizae(?) in the roots, but there wasn't any visible. Even so, I ran out of courage and stopped removing soil (Pic #3) and put the tree in a 50/50 mix of crushed stone and pine bark.

I don't have any plans other than to baby this tree until next year. I am concerned about the apparent total loss of this year's candles though. Anybody have any feeling for what the future holds?

Oh yeah. I'm also concerned about how to water this as it has a combination of bonsai soil and garden soil.

CWTurner said:

I am concerned about the apparent total loss of this year's candles though. Anybody have any feeling for what the future holds?

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Needles only last for 12 to 18 months, so if there was no new growth this year it is likely that the needles it has will turn brown an fall off lat this fall or this winter, just as with a healthy tree. Then it will have no needles and will be quite dead soon thereafter. But, you've gone this far so I suggest you follow it through and see just what happens.

Pruning a branch to leave about half of the extant needes will normally induce fascilar buds (at the base of a fascicle of 5 needles) from which new shoots will grow. You might give this a shot on a few branches - just some experience in case it isn't as far gone as feared.

The buds that I thought were brown and dead DID green up later in 2015 and the tree seems pretty healthy now.
So I figured it was time to do some rough styling/pruning. The tree has 2 potential fronts.
I think the tree moving right looks better. Maybe I'll tilt it counter clockwise if I stay with this orientation

The bark is nicer going left, but a couple branches grow directly out towards me in that orientation. And somehow trees moving to the right just look better in my mind.

Anyway, I made some choices and cut out some unwanted branches. I'll leave the tree be and see what opening up the crown does to the growth. I'll probably do some rough wiring in the spring, and look to repot it in 2018.

I will obviously jin that big stub on the right.
And I need to get a better and larger backdrop.
Comments?
CW

That is a good trunk for a EWP. One of the first I've seen that has the start of mature bark.

I would imagine that you are going to need to graft to get foliage back close to the trunk. I would graft JWP.

jeanluc83 said:

I would imagine that you are going to need to graft to get foliage back close to the trunk. I would graft JWP.

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Yes, I suppose that I may have to resort to grafting, but I'll wait to see what happens next year with the opened crown. Thanks for the JWP tip.
This is a very flexible tree, and I believe that I can crunch it down to tighten it up.
BTW, I have a standard EWP that I created an air layer from, which is supposed to be difficult. So maybe I'm just in the EWP sweet spot, location-wise.
CW

These are popping up all over the place - if you can get the foliage close you may have something here

CWTurner said:

This is a very flexible tree

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Approach grafting would be a good option. My thought would be to change out the foliage to something that responded to bonsai techniques better.

jeanluc83 said:

responded to bonsai techniques better.

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Elm.

That's a strobus?!

I tried strobus nana a few times but they always dropped dead after a while. Good luck with it, they are nice.

just.wing.it said:

That's a strobus?!

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A dwarf variety, yes.
CW