From Seed Division: Haines’ Trees Pinus thunbergii Thread

[Haines' Trees]

A classic favorite for bonsai, I feel like one doesn’t find as many examples of a JBP forest out there. One member of the bonsai society I belong to has a rather good looking one and it inspired me to try my hand at a forest of this species even before this contest was discussed!

I will be starting these seeds soon, perhaps this weekend since there isn’t much to do post New Year! I’ll use the seedling cutting method to try and get some good roots going early, and kept them under a humidity dome inside for a while. Hopefully I can time it right like I did with my cuttings last year and they’ll be ready to go out when the weather warms up.

 

[Haines' Trees]

I decided last night I’d get started on these. Tossed them into some water for a soak, and found relatively few floaters when I came back tonight to check on them. Tossed them into a bag with moistened peat moss and into the fridge they go!

I have 4 of these bags in total now in cold stratification. I didn’t count out how many seeds went into each bag, a bit tedious for me, but if I had to hazard a guess I’d say around 60. Come the beginning of March they’ll come out and we’ll see what kind of start we get!

 

[Haines' Trees]

So the 4 bags will have had their 60 days by this time next week. I decided to pull one out just for kicks to see if there is anything that’ll wake up after a day or 2. If so I’ll pull another bag. Will report back on that.

Im planning on cutting the seedlings to encourage nice radial roots at a young age, which is why I’m hoping for such an early germination.

 

[Haines' Trees]

So I’ve got some life brewing in the bag I pulled last week. Gonna get them into some flats tonight. I have pulled the other 3 bags from the fridge but they are still cooking apparently, will update on those when there is news.

 

[Haines' Trees]

I don’t know why I didn’t post this last night haha. There ended up being probably 150+ seeds in that one bag. I furrowed a mixture of 50/50 peat moss/perlite and watered in the seeds. They’ll sit on a heating mat under a grow light for a couple weeks until I cut them and by then hopefully I won’t have to worry as much about cold weather.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Signs of life!

Planting three more flats today as well.

 

[Haines' Trees]

This is the first bag that I planted. The other three trays obviously don’t have this much going on but they’ve got a couple starting to poke up here and there.

I should have plenty of individuals to choose from

 

[Yamabudoudanshi]

I'm really exited to see this happen. It seems pine clumps are common, and often very attractive. But I never see pine forests. I wonder why..?

 

[Haines' Trees]

So I made some cuttings out of what I had (actually I did about a week ago; bad Haines for not updating the thread). I made 36 for the contest, and I’m hoping to get another 36 out of the last of my JBP seeds. There is the odd cutting here and there that hasn’t made it, but I’m pretty sure that as of now I’m sitting at 80-90% success on this batch. Only time will tell!

 

[Haines' Trees]

Beautiful late spring day today and a bit of humidity and not much wind. I decided to move the strongest 18 out. There are 7 more inside that I’m waiting a bit longer on. Will keep a close eye over the next week to make sure they’re adjusting well.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Cuttings are doing well outside! The remaining 7 that were living inside sort of got forgotten about One of the 18 that went outside blew away. So I have 17 for now. Starting to see some mature needles coming in

 

[Haines' Trees]

October update!

Haven’t lost a one this summer, despite a tornado and other crazy weather. Many have been putting out mature needles for a while now. The cotyledons are pretty much all yellowed and useless so it all looks a little nasty. But I’m happy with the first seasons growth


Hoping that the winter isn’t too hard on them this year.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Starting to see some funky colors in some of the cuttings, sort of bronze to reddish brown. The picture doesn’t do it justice. There’s not anything that shouts “imminent death” fortunately. I’ve got older cuttings not for contest purposes that did the same thing their first winter. Just waiting for some snow to cover them up and be a nice blanket of insulation for the winter!

 

[Haines' Trees]

Here they are covered in a bit of snow, definitely fast asleep. The funky colors are consistent with JBP seedlings I’ve grown in the past. Due for about 6 inches of snow on New Years Day; good for covering these up for a while for the winter, protecting them from the really hard cold.

 

[Haines' Trees]

And here we go again, for a new generation, possibly with some destined for this contest.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Pulled the tray from the ground today and did some cleanup on top of the soil, mostly detritus. The color is a bit rough looking but they almost all have candles and show signs of growth. I plan to leave them in these plastic pots for another season before getting them into something bigger.

The seeds for the new year have been planted btw, but not cut yet. That’s probably still a couple weeks off

 

[Haines' Trees]

Update:

A job change meant that this year’s batch of seeds were doomed to fail, but the initial batch planted last year still lives!

I’ve seen solid growth from this tray this season. I’m hesitant to move the tray about to get a “good” picture because it’s a cheap plastic container and I don’t want to be shifting the roots about. I’m down to 13 due mostly to winter related death, I’ll be using silt fence to protect my pines from the wind this upcoming winter.

This is the same individual pictured in post #12.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Here they are after a particularly strange winter in Chicagoland… going to get them into proper pots and take a good look at them one by one.

 

[Haines' Trees]

Here we have them a couple weeks after repot. 11 of them standing. There were 2 within the bunch that didn’t look so good. Some are stronger than others but they all look pretty decent!

 

[Haines' Trees]

No casualties so far. Here is the one that appears strongest.