Five Year Native Tree Challenge: parvae_arbores's Pinus Rigida (Pitch Pine)

[parvae_arbores]

Hello there,
First time doing a contest on here, but since I have done nothing to this pitch pine I got through my club I might as well track my progress to develop it. Funny back story on this tree, I have been asking literally everyone that will respond back to me on reddit, here, and going so far as to email local bonsai nurseries to find a place to go and dig some of these trees up. I have been getting crickets, and anyone selling these trees are charging hundreds for sticks in pots. I got an email one day from our club president saying another member randomly dug up some pines from their yard and put them in pots, first come first serve. I threw my 1.5 year old in the car seat and drove the 1 hour to his house and picked my tree still not knowing what kind of pine it was (to the chagrin of my wife). Eventually after a bunch of back and forth with a friend and a few trips outside to count needles I identified it as pitch pine and was super pleased I decided anger my wife to randomly drive 80 miles to grab a single tree. Anyways, I am still looking for places to collect trees (if you are willing to share your spot).

As for the tree, its growing nicely in the soil that it came in which I am assuming was taken from the site itself. I have done nothing to this tree at all except water it. I am still undecided if I split the trunk from the bottom up and try to put a really interesting bend in it for an informal upright style or if I bend it drastically toward the top and reduce the foliage hard to do a literati style. I know that this year I am going to repot it into something deeper and wider, with mostly organic soil and a lot of mycorizae and fertilizer till I see it start popping growth all over the trunk and I might do some branch selection and needle reduction on the crown to even out the growth on the lower branches.

Here are some pictures I took today of this tree:

 

[RJG2]

You can come up to Maine, dig mine up and get it out of the chain link, then give me yours

 

[parvae_arbores]

You can come up to Maine, dig mine up and get it out of the chain link, then give me yours

Don't worry there is still time for me to kill this tree during this contest.

 

[HorseloverFat]

You can come up to Maine, dig mine up and get it out of the chain link, then give me yours

I was all, “I think I was at this thread , today”

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Your trunk already has a "little wiggle", you might not need to split the trunk in order to bend the trunk. But not seeing it in person I can not tell you for certain. Changing the planting angle can "take care of" the need to do drastic bending. The tree should not be perpendicular to the plane of the soil. The tree should be off vertical by a few degrees to quite a few degrees. Usually at least 15 degrees off vertical looks pretty good, up to 45 degrees off vertical.

Do not do the "trunk splitting" the same year you plan to repot. The tree will need time to recover from repotting before the drastic bending.

 

[parvae_arbores]

Your trunk already has a "little wiggle", you might not need to split the trunk in order to bend the trunk. But not seeing it in person I can not tell you for certain. Changing the planting angle can "take care of" the need to do drastic bending. The tree should not be perpendicular to the plane of the soil. The tree should be off vertical by a few degrees to quite a few degrees. Usually at least 15 degrees off vertical looks pretty good, up to 45 degrees off vertical.

Do not do the "trunk splitting" the same year you plan to repot. The tree will need time to recover from repotting before the drastic bending.

I planned to slip pot this up, and inoculate with mycroryzae to get it really growing healthy. If I do split and bend the trunk it will be in next year's winter dormancy. I am also going back and forth between using a highly organic soil (bark and coconut husk) with a bunch of lava and pumice or whether I go full akadama, pumice, lava to start. These trees like bad rocky soil so I am leaning towards non-organic.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Sounds good.

If your plan includes dramatically increasing the trunk diameter, meaning many cycles of growing out and cutting back, I would probably stick to the more organic mix. If you are ready to slow down the growth rate, go with the inorganic. Or, if you want slower growth in your cycles of growing out and cutting back, then go inorganic. The slower growth rate will give you shorter internodes, which is better for overall design.

 

[parvae_arbores]

Sounds good.

If your plan includes dramatically increasing the trunk diameter, meaning many cycles of growing out and cutting back, I would probably stick to the more organic mix. If you are ready to slow down the growth rate, go with the inorganic. Or, if you want slower growth in your cycles of growing out and cutting back, then go inorganic. The slower growth rate will give you shorter internodes, which is better for overall design.

I lean more towards an informal upright the more I look at this tree, which means trunk thickening is in order. Curious if you see the potential for literati by reducing the foliage to just the crown and bending it back on itself. I am still waffling on my vision for this tree.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

This is a fairly young tree. I generally shy away from "Literati" style. The reason is, in order to successfully achieve "Literati" style, one needs the appearance of age. Rough, textured bark is critical to make Literati work as a style. This tree won't show aged bark for many years. I would go with a more conventional informal upright style. You can always take it to Literati later in the tree's life. Most attempts at literati I've seen fall short, even in the hands of experienced growers, where as many are able to turn out a fine informal upright.

So go informal upright, would be my suggestion.

 

[parvae_arbores]

This is a fairly young tree. I generally shy away from "Literati" style. The reason is, in order to successfully achieve "Literati" style, one needs the appearance of age. Rough, textured bark is critical to make Literati work as a style. This tree won't show aged bark for many years. I would go with a more conventional informal upright style. You can always take it to Literati later in the tree's life. Most attempts at literati I've seen fall short, even in the hands of experienced growers, where as many are able to turn out a fine informal upright.

So go informal upright, would be my suggestion.

This is why I love pitch pine, the bark getting chunky and plated happens relatively quickly since it's their defense mechanism for wild fires. The bark on this tree is already starting to show that plating, but I think you have tipped me over the edge and I will keep this one informal upright. I do eventually want that literati style tree, but I can wait till I dig something up more suitable.

 

[parvae_arbores]

Some pics of some possible fronts and the roots from when I repotted it. I chose to inoculate it with some microryzae and put it into a compost mix for the next growing season.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I know I suggested against going literati style. But here is a thread that demonstrates literati style. You can see why I don't think it works for young material. But if this barks up as fast as you suggest, maybe literati is feasible.

Literati training !

I create this topic to post all my trees in literati training process. I love literati style for its simplicity and grace. I did a retrospective study of the literati style proportion in 25 literati bonsai, I found ratio of the height to the trunk base (H/B) is greater than 14. I think I must...

www.bonsainut.com

 

[Fi5ch]

I am very interested in this thread as I live near the NJ pine barrens and can collect dozens of pitch pine from local yards, from 12" saplings to 6' monsters. So far I have dug 5 or 6 ~24" tall out of pure sand and the roots were likely too thick in some cases for survival. Having said that, they all look healthy replanted in the ground in heavy sand on a barrier island. If they are going to die, how long would it take to do so, or to see signs of distress? (asking for a friend...)

 

[parvae_arbores]

Where there feeder roots on the thicker roots when you dug it? If so the thicker roots will grow more fine roots as long as it doesn't dry out or get sunburnt. In the next couple of weeks you will start to see candling, you should check the trees you dug have candles that are getting longer and eventually turning green. Needles turning yellow all over is bad, drooping needles also bad.

 

[Fi5ch]

Preview attachment IMG_1834.jpgIMG_1834.jpg157 KB

Here is a pic of the one with the best fine roots

 

[Fi5ch]

 

[Fi5ch]

And here is what it looks like now, planted in sand under the house with partial sun.

 

[parvae_arbores]

As long as not too many of those roots didn't dry out it should be fine since there are a lot of feeders. I would recommend digging it up again next year and putting it into a better medium to encourage fine root growth even more.

 

[parvae_arbores]

I made the decision to pot this in a deeper pot, with very organic soil and to fertilize heavily. You cannot argue with the results on this move. I took some pictures of what back bidding looks like on the trunk and the branches. I plan to keep fertilizing heavily and thin out the shoots at the end of the summer growing season so it doesn't bleed too much.

 

[Forsoothe!]

I hate to disagree with the Leo, but the photos I see have pretty good bark and, even though I don't know anything about the species, I think it will take forever to fatten up significantly. That is even saying nothing about the lack of branches for an upright. For all those reasons I like the Literati option. I suspect that the top (wherever that winds up to be) can be torchered in several stages to get to a Literati. I don't like leaning trees either, so I suspect that the planting angle is un-discernible until such time as the top (of a Literati) is established. So there, the other side of the coin, for what it's worth.