First Summer Season

[Haines' Trees]

Hey all!

So I’m in my first summer of bonsai enthusiasm, obviously still fairly ignorant in the art. I managed to get a few seeds to sprout and im wondering at what age I should begin to fertilize.

Here is my best seedling, a JWP

This particular picture is a bit out of date, it’s about 3 weeks old at this point. Yes it’s a bit young for this time of year, I blame my ignorance lol. I’ve got 3 other JWPs a bit behind this one and some Siberian elms (native to my area) that just popped up today.

Any advice would be awesome, thanks folks!

 

[Haines' Trees]

Although I guess by definition the Siberian elms aren’t native ?

 

[Shibui]

Seedlings have a small store of food from the seed so they can manage for a few weeks but usually do better with added fert soon after sprouting. Seedlings grow very long and leggy unless they have really good light levels. They should be out in the sun for best results.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Funny story, they went outside and the dog attacked them and knocked the good one out of the pot...



I’m in the process of building an elevated position that the dog can’t get to, hopefully I can finish it today so they can go outside of good.

 

[Shibui]

Seedlings this young can usually cope with huge amount of abuse. I doubt that your seedling will even notice.
Did you happen to prune the main root while it was out of the pot? I normally repot most of my seedlings at about this stage and take the opportunity to cut the main downward root to force plenty of lateral roots that will eventually form the nebari of the future bonsai. Many people are too frightened to do this to seedlings and the roots can still be pruned later.

 

[Haines' Trees]

I didn’t. I’ve read that pruning back that first long taproot is good for young seedlings to help establish new roots close to the surface. But there really wasn’t much to the root system! it Was only a couple inches long with nothing really branching off at this point. Dang! In my panic I didn’t think to take a picture!

I’ve also read that JWPs are notoriously finicky when it comes to their roots and I didn’t want to put anymore stress on it. Might just be the cautious noob in me but I figured it was pointless to report it, but did it anyway, thankfully. It appears to still be doing alright!

Took an Eastern White Pine yearling out of my backyard today. I did prune back that ones roots a bit.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Okay here’s one for everyone, what the heck is going on here?
This thing has been this reddish brown color since it poked out of the dirt. When it first did I figured it was dying and didn’t expect much else but nope, still growing. Came from the same batch as all my other JWP seeds, looks just like all the others too. Did a mystery seed make its way into my seeds or is this a fairly normal thing to see from JWP seedlings? I have another one poking out that looks the same.

 

[plant_dr]

If it's still growing, I'd just let it do its thing. (Unless it starts singing, ''Feed me!!!'')