FINALLY! Table mountain pines!

GGB

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Using this thread as a baby book for one of my favorite pine species. After 3 years of drooling and missing the boat on buying seeds, my pinus pungens came in the mail today. I have been wanting this species forever. A native of the Appalachian mtn from PA to ga, a twisted up rugged pine.
They came potted not bare root. I inocculated the soil with myco fungi and acidic fertilizer and slip potted slightly larger with bonsai soil. The roots are pretty dorky but I'm saving all that for spring 2019. Any input is welcome. At this point I don't even know how many flushes to expect. My friend works with botanical gardens and she's working on hooking me up with some seed for this species. I'd like to do seedling cuttings this spring if anyone wants to join team table mountain. Pics show potted trees and the brand of myco fungi I use with overnight explosive results. Unfortunately the trees showed up without the white stuff. Beer in photo is a pounder not 12oz
 

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Adair M

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Using this thread as a baby book for one of my favorite pine species. After 3 years of drooling and missing the boat on buying seeds, my pinus pungens came in the mail today. I have been wanting this species forever. A native of the Appalachian mtn from PA to ga, a twisted up rugged pine.
They came potted not bare root. I inocculated the soil with myco fungi and acidic fertilizer and slip potted slightly larger with bonsai soil. The roots are pretty dorky but I'm saving all that for spring 2019. Any input is welcome. At this point I don't even know how many flushes to expect. My friend works with botanical gardens and she's working on hooking me up with some seed for this species. I'd like to do seedling cuttings this spring if anyone wants to join team table mountain. Pics show potted trees and the brand of myco fungi I use with overnight explosive results. Unfortunately the trees showed up without the white stuff. Beer in photo is a pounder not 12oz
Slip potting into “bonsai soil” is not a good practice.

Here’s the deal: assuming the “bonsai soil” is a good open inorganic mix, when you water, the water will run thru it and out the bottom before it soaks into the old nurseryman’s peat based mix. Now, all the roots are in the peat. The peat really doesn’t get wet. The roots pull water out of the peat. Even though you water, the center of the peat gets dry. When peat gets dry, a remarkable thing happens: it resists water! So, the peat root ball gets dryer and dryer. The roots run out of water. The plant suffers, and maybe dies.

Why don’t the roots go into the bonsai Mix? It’s so open, and there’s so much air, they don’t extend into it. The edge of the peat rootball is as far as they will go.

That is why many people for years resisted using inorganic soil. They said it “didn’t work” and that “roots won’t grow in it”.

The problem is “slip potting” into a different soil. If you slip pot into soil exactly the same as the old soil, no problem. But, going from heavily organic soil to inorganic soil is a shock to the plant.

To make the transition, a proper repot needs to occur. Older trees get a “half bare root repot to get rid of the old soil on half the roots, younger trees like this. Get their roots teased out of the organic soil around the perimeter of he root ball. By 1/2 to 3/4 inch. So the root ball is “fuzzy”. Cut the bottom of the root ball flat, no fuzzies there.

Now, when the tree is potted into inorganic mix, the little feeder roots will be surrounded by inorganic soil. They won’t have to “grow into it”, they’re already in it. When you water, they’ll get wet.

THAT’S how to do it. Don’t “slip pot”.

I hope this makes sense.
 

GGB

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Yes @Adair M it absolutely does. The bonsai nursery I visit slips from soil to bonsai grit. I figured it was common practice but I suspected exactly what you said was happening.
You think I should keep a close eye on the trees until spring or do the root work tomorrow? I'm zone 6b and fall is taking its time with temps in the 80s.
Thank you for taking the time to weigh in. For what it's worth my collection of trees isn't huge and I can spend the time to make sure the soil is as evenly moist as is possible until April
 

Adair M

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Yes @Adair M it absolutely does. The bonsai nursery I visit slips from soil to bonsai grit. I figured it was common practice but I suspected exactly what you said was happening.
You think I should keep a close eye on the trees until spring or do the root work tomorrow? I'm zone 6b and fall is taking its time with temps in the 80s.
Thank you for taking the time to weigh in. For what it's worth my collection of trees isn't huge and I can spend the time to make sure the soil is as evenly moist as is possible until April
Now that you are aware of the problem, you can wait until spring to do a proper repot.

What tends to happen is people “water until it runs out the bottom”. Well, when you slip pot, it rounds down the sides, and not thru the core of the rootball.

Many, many places repot poorly. Because they don’t know better. That’s one of the most valuable things I learned from Boon: how to repot.

Part of the confusion comes from the old books. Where they show repotting. In Japan, the trees are already in good bonsai soil. So repotting is straightforward. But here in the US, the commercial nurseries use a peat, sand, bark substrate, and when that gets slip potted into ALP, it just doesn’t work.
 

jeanluc83

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I've had my eye on this pine for a while. When I started my pitch pine from seed it was suggested that I start some table mountain pines too.

Your seedlings look very similar to pitch pine. I believe they hybridize naturally with pitch pine and have been told they can be treated similarly. I think they are a double flush pine but I'm not certain.

Wait until spring and do a proper repot. At this point it is likely to more harm and little to no good.

If they are like pitch pine they would do well in a dryer mix. I have my pitch pine in sifted dryer stall (pumice) and about 15-20% fir bark. I water daily and fertilize every 10-14 days with chemical fertilizer.

One of the best thing you can do is keep your trees in full sun all day.
 

GGB

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@jeanluc83 they do in fact hybridize with many local pines. They are said to be very slow growing, the reason I went for starters over seed.
I have also done pitch from seed but am lucky enough to have access to 7 to 10 year old pitch pines from spring to fall. I find I don't like working with pines that are older than a few years old. So darn hard to find anything worth using unless you've been raising it yourself.haha
Every year a pick a pine species or 2 and grow them from seed but it feels like forever until you get your hands dirty.
 

GGB

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And @Potawatomi13 I hear you, I know the myco dust can be a touchy subject. These 4(?) Year old trees had no evidence of the stuff so why not add it. Like I said the stuff works very quickly, I like it for situations exactly like this.
I accidentally bare rooted pines in grow out beds when the soil fell away from the roots. I was glad to have it then too, also the incident that showedbme how fast the stuff works
 

David wv

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Using this thread as a baby book for one of my favorite pine species. After 3 years of drooling and missing the boat on buying seeds, my pinus pungens came in the mail today. I have been wanting this species forever. A native of the Appalachian mtn from PA to ga, a twisted up rugged pine.
They came potted not bare root. I inocculated the soil with myco fungi and acidic fertilizer and slip potted slightly larger with bonsai soil. The roots are pretty dorky but I'm saving all that for spring 2019. Any input is welcome. At this point I don't even know how many flushes to expect. My friend works with botanical gardens and she's working on hooking me up with some seed for this species. I'd like to do seedling cuttings this spring if anyone wants to join team table mountain. Pics show potted trees and the brand of myco fungi I use with overnight explosive results. Unfortunately the trees showed up without the white stuff. Beer in photo is a pounder not 12oz
I would love to find some table mountain pines, where were you able to get these from? They don't seem to be very common so no one is selling them, at least that I have found. Also do you have a update on these, I would love to see how they are today. Are they pretty slow growers?
 

GGB

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Hi @David wv funny timing! I have gotten away from longer needled pines (actually pines in general) and culled a lot of my projects from the last few years. Unfortunately probably too many... So I don't have these pines anymore. Sheffields used to sell seeds and there was one retail nursery that sprouted them and sold to the public but when Sheffields dried up the nursery soon sold out. Somewhat recently a member here @JTrips (from your neck of the woods, a little..) offered, very kindly, to send me some P. pungens seed. Send him a message or maybe he'll hit you up here. Hopefully he still has some, because as far as I know he's the only seed source in the world haha. I went as far as contacting botanical gardens in the past and even they didn't have the tree. from the little interaction I had with these pines I would imagine they could make good to great bonsai. Treat some as a single flush and some as a double flush once the trunks have grown out. Be better than me and don't quit on them, an untouched american species that is ripe for pioneering
 

David wv

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Hi @David wv funny timing! I have gotten away from longer needled pines (actually pines in general) and culled a lot of my projects from the last few years. Unfortunately probably too many... So I don't have these pines anymore. Sheffields used to sell seeds and there was one retail nursery that sprouted them and sold to the public but when Sheffields dried up the nursery soon sold out. Somewhat recently a member here @JTrips (from your neck of the woods, a little..) offered, very kindly, to send me some P. pungens seed. Send him a message or maybe he'll hit you up here. Hopefully he still has some, because as far as I know he's the only seed source in the world haha. I went as far as contacting botanical gardens in the past and even they didn't have the tree. from the little interaction I had with these pines I would imagine they could make good to great bonsai. Treat some as a single flush and some as a double flush once the trunks have grown out. Be better than me and don't quit on them, an untouched american species that is ripe for pioneering
Hey thanks for the quick reply and the info, I will check it out. I may have some growing around me but I have trouble identifying the difference in them and Virginia pine. I am just getting into pines and they seem to be a completely different beast but a nice challenge, hopefully. Thanks again.
 
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