"Dwarf evergreen" white pine

[pnwnovice]

So, I told myself I wouldn't buy any trees until I had a little more experience under my belt with pre-bonsai I collect at work, but then I stumbled across a 75% off sale. Most of the trees had far worse swells at the (I'm assuming) graft point so I only went with this guy. Still not sure if I'm going to bonsai it or just have it as a garden tree, but for $16 I couldn't pass it up.

With it's height and sparse branching I realize this lends itself to a literati style, but does anyone know if it's possible to get white pine to backbud? Or if not, is it possible to air layer them? I realize pines take a long time to air layer, but are the odds of it working even worth the 2+ year wait?

And one final set of questions for now, I know very little about pines right now so when is the ideal time to repot them? Should I just slip pot it into a larger container for now? Should I just leave it in the nursery pot for now until I can get the chlorosis treated?

 

[0soyoung]

Good decision. You should get far more than $16 worth of learning with it.

White pines, in general, don't root, so you're not likely to succeed with an air layer or cuttings. But you've got a lot of stuff up top. Try to air layer a small branch and see for yourself. If it does root, it will likely take 2 or 3 years, but BFD.

No, they don't backbud. But I do see that you've got one tuft of needles close to the trunk and very low down, close to soil level. This might be the beginnings of your future tree, with all the rest of it being a sacrifice to thicken that trunk between it and the soil level. Meanwhile, you've got lots of branches to play with: wiring and bending as well as forming pads; observing how buds extend into short candles, all the needles presently on the tree will have fallen off two years from now, and etc.

Have fun with your little laboratory.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I agree with most of what 0soyoung has said. For $16 this is a great piece of learning material.

It does look grafted, and curious minds want to know. Could you give us the name of the pine. Species and cultivar name.

Is it Pinus parviflora? or Pinus strobus? or Pinus flexilis? All the white pines can more or less be treated the same horticulturally, but there are subtle differences.

The next part of the name would be the cultivar name, it will be in english (usually) and in single quotes. Names like 'Niagra' or 'Sea Urchin' would be Pinus strobus cultivars. If it were Pinus parviflora the name might be in Japanese 'Azuma' or 'Pentafolia Azuma', or 'Cleary's Blue' or 'Kokonoe'

Each cultivar will have traits that distinguishes it from the "normal" habits of the species. Sometimes these traits are really interesting.

So lets start with the name.

 

[pnwnovice]

It does look grafted, and curious minds want to know. Could you give us the name of the pine. Species and cultivar name.

Is it Pinus parviflora? or Pinus strobus? or Pinus flexilis? All the white pines can more or less be treated the same horticulturally, but there are subtle differences.

I wish I knew. The nursery was not very helpful on that end. All the tag says was "dwarf evergreen" and I asked the gal working there what species it was and all she seemed to know was that it was a white pine. So I'm not sure if it's a cultivar of a Japanese white pine or if they have some sort of cultivar developed from the Washington native white pine Pinus monticola.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Greatly agree with low branching being trees future. Would suggest starting development of 2 low branches but keep all upper tree to grow trunk. If any movement could be added to low trunk would be great.

 

[Shibui]

White pines, in general, don't root, so you're not likely to succeed with an air layer or cuttings.

Interesting observation. You may be aware of the JWP variety called 'zushio' It is exclusively grown from cuttings and appears to be quite easy to strike.
Before anyone had told me I could not grow JWP from cuttings I took a piece home from a club meeting and put it in. I guess no-one had told the pine either because it produced roots and grew for a couple of years before I managed to kill it off.
On the strength of that experience I now strike cuttings from some new JWP seedlings I've grown. Seems the JWP still hasn't been told it can't root because I am still getting cuttings to root. Not huge success rates but still worth putting the cuttings in.
Given that white pine can grow roots I believe that layers should be possible if you want to try. I have not tried but only because i don't have any large enough stock.

'Dwarf evergreen' seems a strange name for a pine. Maybe that is to differentiate from another one they have called 'dwarf deciduous'?

 

[Adair M]

Interesting observation. You may be aware of the JWP variety called 'zushio' It is exclusively grown from cuttings and appears to be quite easy to strike.
Before anyone had told me I could not grow JWP from cuttings I took a piece home from a club meeting and put it in. I guess no-one had told the pine either because it produced roots and grew for a couple of years before I managed to kill it off.
On the strength of that experience I now strike cuttings from some new JWP seedlings I've grown. Seems the JWP still hasn't been told it can't root because I am still getting cuttings to root. Not huge success rates but still worth putting the cuttings in.
Given that white pine can grow roots I believe that layers should be possible if you want to try. I have not tried but only because i don't have any large enough stock.

'Dwarf evergreen' seems a strange name for a pine. Maybe that is to differentiate from another one they have called 'dwarf deciduous'?

Your experience of growing JWP from cuttings is not typical! Please create a thread that documents your process so others might be more successful!

I have several Zuisho, that were propagated from airlayers, by Julian Adams. He has good luck with that, but he tells me that only about 5% of the cuttings take.

Kokonoe is also easy to layer. I don’t know about cuttings.

Most of the other JWP cultivars are more difficult to propagate on their own roots, so they are usually grafted.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Hmm, funny that taking cuttings from JWP was mentioned so recently! I saw something while browsing the internet last night showing someone who was taking cuttings of JBP, JRP, and JWP (not on this forum, don't remember the site, I was a few beers deep lol). The procedure he laid out was identical to the common method of making cuttings from JBP seedlings. I was planning on posting a new thread tonight asking if anyone on the forum has experience taking cuttings from JWP seedlings since I'll be pulling seeds out of stratification soon. I wasn't entirely ready to believe some random webpage since JWPs have notoriously finicky root systems.

 

[Adair M]

Hmm, funny that taking cuttings from JWP was mentioned so recently! I saw something while browsing the internet last night showing someone who was taking cuttings of JBP, JRP, and JWP (not on this forum, don't remember the site, I was a few beers deep lol). The procedure he laid out was identical to the common method of making cuttings from JBP seedlings. I was planning on posting a new thread tonight asking if anyone on the forum has experience taking cuttings from JWP seedlings since I'll be pulling seeds out of stratification soon. I wasn't entirely ready to believe some random webpage since JWPs have notoriously finicky root systems.

Seedling cuttings is not the same as taking a cutting from a mature pine tree. Mark Comstock has been taking seedling cuttings of Black and White Pines. I don’t know if he did any Reds or not.

 

[Haines' Trees]

My bad, I meant seedling cuttings specifically with the white pines. I’ve had a decent amount of success with taking seedling cuttings on JBPs (for my first try anyway), of the 20 I took last month 14 are still kicking. I was wondering if it was something that could also be done with white pine seedlings. Anything for a good nebari down the road!

 

[robert gardner]

I have a Pinus albicaulis that I am going to Bonsai. As I was going thru my Bonsai stock I noticed that I have a mixture of needle length.
Some are over an inch long and the majority are shorter around 3/4 inch in length,. I would like to know can I trim all the longer ones in half
so that nest years needles will come out shorter' This is my first venture into the world of White Pines.
Would like some feedback from any Whiter pine nuts out there. PLEASE REPLY !!!!!!!!!
thanks before hand

 

[Haines' Trees]

If you trim an individual needle the remaining but will brown and you’ll end up with a multicolored pine.
Needle length can mainly be controlled through fertilization amount, timing, etc. There are plenty of threads about fertilizing and the differences it yields. Check those out with the search function!

 

[robert gardner]

Haines trees,
Thanks for the quick reply. will research effects of fertilizer for the upcoming spring. Trees just starting out of dormancy.