A few pine seeds, 6 years later.

jeanluc83

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This thread alone has inspired many to grow from seed. My self included.

This is the stuff that we need to be doing as a nation to really build a base. The more people that are growing for the specific purpose of bonsai the better our material will be in the years to come.

I'll take this one step further and encourage people to start growing north American native trees from seed. We have some fantastic trees only found as collected specimens. Not everyone has the means, the inclination or the access to collected trees. Nursery grown trees are the next step to get these trees more widely used.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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This is the stuff that we need to be doing as a nation to really build a base. The more people that are growing for the specific purpose of bonsai the better our material will be in the years to come. Great work Eric. I too have decided to give this a go this next spring. However I am leaning more towards purchasing seedlings from this guy:
http://www.porkyfarm.com/japblkpine.asp


Thoughts?

You can save a year or two with seedlings bought this way. But with pines, they will not have had that first pruning or candle cut that helps induce low branching. Not a problem for growing trees for medium and larger bonsai. For shohin pines, you may have to work to force lower branching. I've started many a tree this way. Never ordered from Porky Farm, but have ordered from Musser's and from Cold Stream. Cold Stream is just "down the road" from Porky Farm.

http://www.coldstreamfarm.net

http://www.musserforests.com

and there is an incredible assortment of species at
http://www.forestfarm.com
 

Eric Schrader

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The seeds are fine. I ended up switching them to the fridge, but considering seeds stay out in the cold winter elements I doubt they were hurt.

Eric, I was looking at this thread and your website again. Where are you finding these extra large pond baskets?

I found the black ones originally on ebay, but I've not seen them in a long time on there. I'm actually not sure that they are being manufactured anymore. Actually, just found this on Amazon, which is about the size I have:

http://www.amazon.com/Aquatic-Deep-...8&qid=1419397741&sr=8-13&keywords=pond+basket

But I think the ones I have are 14".

The large round blue ones come from a Chinese store here in San Francisco. They are apparently made for restaurants for washing vegetables. I'd guess you could find them at hardware type stores in a China town near you.
 

Eric Schrader

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Hey, Eric! Saw your trees at last weekend's workshop on Facebook! Sweet!

I'll be showing my JBP at BIB Show this year. See you in a couple weeks.

The cruel irony of FB is that Boon posts my trees there and I never get to see them cause I don't have an account. Which is silly in some way, but my protest against the commercial internet.
 

KennedyMarx

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ha. I've seen him post pics of you guys and your trees. I love seeing his posts on there.
 

Eric Schrader

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This little tree has gotten bigger in the last few years. Here we are in February 2012:

A fat little informal upright, trunk is only about 1.5" now but the sacrifice is growing nice and low and the finished branches are developing well also. The top will have to be grown up in the next few years.
6820732263_57ac40a9e3_z.jpg

And in June 2014, decandling time and starting transition to a new sacrifice branch that is now sticking up from the rest of the foliage in the crown:

15918228240_93b6f03b11_b.jpg


December 2014, prior to work in the photo below. The foliage is quite yellowy, something that appears to have started in the summer prior to decandling. This is typically a sign that the tree is getting a little too much water. The needles will start to get yellow at the base and then the color progresses up the entire length of the needle. The needles are only loosely attached instead of firmly attached and overall the vigor will start to decline if it is not remedied.

16104834732_21c0594963_b.jpg


Here a closeup of the part of the tree to be used:

15919807707_272c916646_b.jpg


To address the water issue I scraped the top 2" of soil off and replaced it with fresh. This won't entirely solve it so I'll have to water it less going forward.

Here the original sacrifice branch being removed, this will help the taper eventually as the new sacrifice is higher up and will help heal over the wound:

16103657111_c06da57451_b.jpg


16103687431_87f54ea7d6_b.jpg


Starting to wire and thin the tree, this view makes the new sacrifice more obvious:

16105587705_0fc04a852c_b.jpg


Finished wiring for now:

16103686101_c1e05858f5_b.jpg


One of the reasons that I wanted to transition to the new sacrifice is that the roots on the left side are fusing together quite well, but the right side is comparatively slow. I'm hoping that using a sacrifice that's higher on the trunk will provide more evenly-distributed wood production.
 

tmpgh

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I read in this thread about the importance of choosing seeds from a quality specimen to start with. Does anyone know of a reliable source of such seed? Commercial seeds I wouldn't trust. Does anyone in the community share or sell seeds from their trees?
 

Vance Wood

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This is getting to be a really nice tree. Yes you can grow bonsai from seed but you have been working on this tree for what---ten years. That to is an accomplishment. Most people do not keep after a Black Pine consistently enough to get this kind of result in ten years. The Nebari is wonderful. It is always nice to see a tree that is the result of a lot of hard work and artistry.
 
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Eric Schrader

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I read in this thread about the importance of choosing seeds from a quality specimen to start with. Does anyone know of a reliable source of such seed? Commercial seeds I wouldn't trust. Does anyone in the community share or sell seeds from their trees?

Seed sourcing is important. And it's easy to forget that when they're just seeds. I'd go hunting around your area for a Japanese black pine in a landscape that has extraordinarily good bark and ideally also a compact growth habit.

If I recall correctly, these seeds came from such a tree in Alameda, CA, near where Boon previously held workshops. The superior bark characteristics that some are exhibiting are undoubtedly inherited from the same characteristic in the parent tree.

I unfortunately did not collect seeds this year. I only have a few seeds from one cone off one of the trees in this batch and I'll be germinating them myself. I do plan to collect seeds in Alameda next fall if I can.
 

thumblessprimate1

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This slightly odd semi-cascade exposed root...it has amazing bark but the top needs a lot of work to form a good small crown.

15828467125_5d626d08d5_b.jpg

I love this pine. I keep coming back to this thread to review. Would you please explain a bit on the work involved for development of the crown? And is it challenging because of the small size of the tree?
 

Vance Wood

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The tree really is an accomplishment.
 

Eric Schrader

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I love this pine. I keep coming back to this thread to review. Would you please explain a bit on the work involved for development of the crown? And is it challenging because of the small size of the tree?

The view you're seeing in that photo is the rough front. The final front could be slightly to the right as that view shows a bit more movement, but then the cascading branch doesn't come forward as much.

Crown formation in JBP is easier in larger trees IMO than it is in smaller ones. If you look at the crown of
my large JBP that I've updated a few times the structure is more organic because I can simply trim branches to thin the tree and end up with branchlets that are evenly spaced.

http://bonsainut.com/index.php?threads/9-year-progression-large-jbp.10347/

On the other hand, doing that with a small pine doesn't really work- the small slant exposed root that I've posted takes hours of wiring with tweezers to get the crown to look even and full. If i just thinned it I wouldn't be able to get the shape needed, you can see it here:

http://bonsainut.com/index.php?thre...s-it-really-been-ten-years.17158/#post-230624

My "Aaron's Pine" thread also shows crown work on a shohin tree:
http://bonsainut.com/index.php?threads/jbp-aarons-mikawa.17289/#post-232592

That one took a lot of tweezer work too. What the two small trees have in common is a single point where many of the crown branches emerge.

For the tree that you asked about the single point is possibly there now, but there is only one branch fork. Here is a closeup of the top of the tree:

16531819587_691f4f08a4_b.jpg


As you can see above, the top is a bit confused looking. Ideally, we'd like to see an even taper from the larger trunk below to smaller branching in the crown. In this case, the best taper is to the bud coming from the front of the stub at top middle, just right of the stub. But, the buds on the smaller branch just to the left of the large stub are in better shape and would more easily form a crown if spread out. Unfortunately, that branch starts lower down and doesn't have the taper that I want. So, I'm going to try to to nurse the buds that are up on the better tapered section along until I get a better crown going.

There is one other possible top on the tree, which is a small branch on the back of the top, in the photo below its just below and right of the larger scar, with cut needles:

16737891811_34d6e6b73b_b.jpg


After another year I'll likely go in and eliminate one or more of the candidates and leave the one that looks best.

One thing I've worked out is that once you start cutting off all the vigorous growth and decandling it can take a couple years to re-start a new top on a pine. Different climates will differ, but if you think you're going to want another trunk section it's best to start the transition earlier and reduce the original sacrifice after allowing the new sacrifice to gain some momentum.

Basically, if you have no crown on a tree, the best thing to do on a pine is to bend all the branching down. That causes the base of the shoots to be exposed to light, which means they will bud out in places when you decandle (at least on a healthy tree.) Repeating the process you can lay shorter branches over slightly longer ones and finally end up with some branching that is pointing straight up right in the middle of the top. The center of the crown then is essentially the last thing you grow when nearing a complete crown.

Once you have a complete (-ish) crown then you'll be thinning and using wire for positioning the new shoots while controlling the length through selective pruning to best maintain the silhouette and the balance of vigor.
 

Eric Schrader

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This root-over-rock that needs to be repotted at a different angle, more to come:

15826885001_323a8679bf_b.jpg

Well, last summer this root over rock after candle cutting started to turn quite yellow. At first I thought it was overwatering so I dialed back on the water a bit. When these are in large baskets and you cut off all the growth it seems logical that they would slow down on water uptake.

But this spring, with all my other pines growing already this one was sitting there with the buds barely swelling still. To put it in context, some of the pines in my yard already have half-inch long needles on the candles and all the others have candles of some sort already.

So, my rule of thumb is: when in doubt about the health, repot.

16927138142_3c528d178a_b.jpg


A bit more about this on my blog... if it doesn't crash again!
 

thumblessprimate1

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Woohoo. This pine is looking good. I appreciate the heads up on the blog update.
 

JoeR

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This thread is very inspiring and I am so glad you stared this thread.

It has inspired me to start seeds. I have 100 of them coming soon that I'm going to start. I don't know if I should start all 100 or just half. Yes I know I should have started them earlier.

They don't need stratified I read and I have so many seeds I don't mind a lower sprout rate.

Wondering what's the best soil to start them in. Maybe sand and something else?

I have a hundred or so 3 inch trays with 6 compartments each that I'm using.
 

Eric Schrader

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Wondering what's the best soil to start them in. Maybe sand and something else?

I have a hundred or so 3 inch trays with 6 compartments each that I'm using.

I use a large tray and my normal bonsai soil, with small rows of sand where the seeds actually get sown. Under the sand is regular soil. Like this:

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16929926742_1d730d5887_b.jpg


16905270546_c3c92271d1_b.jpg
 

JoeR

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Great, I may end up doing something similar. Starting them this afternoon hopefully.

I meant to ask,
Have these trees ever been in the ground? You don't mention it and only have pictures of them in baskets. I plan on putting some in the ground and some in large baskets their whole life. Will be interesting to see the difference.

Still haven't decided if I'm doing all 100 at once or only 25 or 50.
 

Cypress187

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Do those pond baskets break so fast or did you chop some of them?
 

Eric Schrader

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The trees have only been container grown. I think if you're going to make large bonsai that it's worth it to do some ground growing, but if you want to make medium or small that containers are a good method.

As for the baskets - they break after a few years in the sun. Some batches are better than others, but they all eventually crumble from the UV exposure. The blue ones are meant to be washing baskets for restaurants. The black ones are containers for putting in pond plants. Both last 5 or 6 years at best.
 
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