New to bonsai - Fukien Tea and several seedlings!

[SkyShep]

Fuki is almost to a month since repotting, and I daresay she may be perking up a bit. Branches are still going strong, even if the leaves are still light green and not the emerald green they should be. Just gave her a good misting and she’s enjoying some partial sun atm.



Chris Pine has been repotted into a little mame pot I got for cheap, and he’s looking classy. Last night vs. this afternoon. Right now he’s on the patio for the rest of the day so he can get used to the outdoors!




My new soil and planters came in so I put my current seedlings into them. I dumped the one containing the Japanese cherry blossom seeds because I have butterfingers, and it was a pain to find the seeds and clean up, but it’s all good now. The little Jacaranda that could shed her seed coating and is poking up from beneath the soil.




I also received my new seeds, and started them soaking this morning. From left to right: Chinese Wisteria, Judas tree, and more Blue Jacaranda because I’ve been losing so many of those seeds. Hopefully with the nutrients in the new organic soil I got, I’ll have a better success rate with those germinating. My mom really wants a blue Jacaranda and I want to hedge my bets!



On my wishlist now are an apple blossom azalea and a Japanese maple. Might have to try to grow some of those in the near future!

 

[rawlyn]

Did you give up for good on the other pine seed? I only ask because I was given a set of 5 from a kit, stratified and germinated over the winter, and had concluded I'd done pretty well when four had actually sprouted, and gotten real needles by the time spring arrived. Look and behold, about a month after moving the one pot they were all in outside, the fifth one poked its way above the surface. So, you never know. . .

Good luck with the tea - it looks like it's in the mend.

- Mike

 

[SkyShep]

When I repotted this pine, I didn’t find the other pine seed. **Shrugs** oh well. I’m sure I can find some more in my neck of the woods in a couple months!

Thanks for the encouragement on the tea, I’d have felt awful if I had killed her.

 

[rawlyn]

Ah, well. If you're interested in pointers on raising the one remaining, you may want to take a look at the materials on the Bonsai Tonight blog (good starting point at: Raising JBP From Seed ). Also, the posts on the forum here for the Six Year Japanese Black Pine Contest are pretty informative.

Look forward to seeing future posts as it develops.

- Mike

 

[SkyShep]

Good news!

The leaves on the tea are getting greener!

Bad news!

They started getting these brown spots the past couple of days. I also found a tiny black, round, what looked like a bug on one of the leaves, but I couldn’t get my camera to focus on it. Because of that I’ve been spraying the tree with a diluted dish soap solution. But any idea on what is causing the brown? The leaves aren’t dry or crispy, and it doesn’t come off when I scrape. Appears to be predominantly on the top of the leaves.




Silly tree...

In other news, I have new sprouts! These are delonix regia, from the seed set my mom had and I wasn’t expecting much out of. But these are lorge bois. Yesterday vs. today.

 

[SkyShep]

I went and got some neem oil because it seems like the brown spotting is some sort of fungus. I also got some akadama and lava rock to put down as a drainage layer because the soil I used is pretty fine, and it was caking up and retaining water around the trunk and the bottom corners of the pot. The infected leaves were removed, too. I did this about 4-5 days ago, and things look pretty good. The remaining leaves aren’t spotting at nearly the rate they had been. There are still some spots but not many. I’ve been applying the fungicide once per day, per the instructions on the label.




Here’s hoping the drama with the tea is resolved, at least for the foreseeable future. Haha.

What really encouraged me was there were a LOT of new, white root shoots on the root ball when I took the tree out to put the new layer of soil in the pot. I trimmed a few black, slimy roots but overall there seem to be a lot of healthy roots forming. So I’d say the tree is recovering from the Great Repotting Trauma. Hopefully once the fungus is gone her foliage will fill out again over the next couple months. I have been seeing new flower buds, but they haven’t opened, and some new leaves.

 

[SkyShep]

Unfortunately, my little pine died, because he got too much unfiltered sun. You win some, you lose some. I plan on trying to grow more pines in the future, though.

To balm my wounded pride over losing the pine sproutling, I’ve been watching my delonix sprouts do a lot of growing over the past few days! They are big, and quickly outgrew the planter.




When I was at the nursery getting the neem oil for the tea, I saw they had these 4” bonsai pots on sale for $2 each, and I couldn’t find any plastic training pots of a similar size, so I just got them. I repotted the delonix twins in these pots and they’ve been thriving!










The last two were from yesterday. I’ll make a separate post for the progress pic from today, since I’ve reached my limit on pictures for one post!

 

[SkyShep]

And the delonix twins from today! They’re growing pretty rapidly. They kind of remind me of xenomorphs. Haha.



Now, I’m not sure why the tips of the smaller one’s leaves are yellow, but I have a feeling that it was because he was having trouble shedding his seed coating. When he did, the ends of the leaves were wonky and discolored. But he seems to be doing fine, so I’m not all that worried about it.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Looks like you are learning a lot. Starting from seed is a good way to learn lots about basic horticulture! Roasting baby pines is done frequently, from what I’ve seen from first timers.

Reading through your posts, I first fearedthat you might of loved the Fukien to death, but it looks promising now.

There is a fine line between being a helicopter parent and treating your plants properly, sometimes folks, including myself, slip into overprotective mode. That’s when the balance gets thrown off and damage ensues.

At some point you’ll lean more towards having more of a Darwinism in action in your collection mindset. That’s when the real fun begins!

cheers
DSD sends

 

[rawlyn]

Unfortunately, my little pine died, because he got too much unfiltered sun. You win some, you lose some. I plan on trying to grow more pines in The future, though!

Sorry to hear the remaining pine didn’t make it. Attrition definitely seems to be something we need to get used to - especially with seedlings. I was amazed when all five of my jack pine seeds germinated, but now a year and a half on, I’m down to just two. I get the impression that could be par for the course. If you read through the posts in the Six Year Japanese Black Pine Contest, you’ll see that most of those guys planted literally *dozens* of seeds in the hope of winding up with enough that will survive - often even more. I count myself lucky to have made it through two winters and still have two remaining. (And, I’ve had even *worse* luck trying to grow American Hornbeam and Black Tupelo from seed. After two seasons of trying with months alternately cold and warm stratification, I *might* have a single hornbeam sapling growing in my garden - but it could just as easily be a “volunteer” from some unknown species, as the leaves look a little wrong to me. . .)

Great news on the tea, though!

- Mike

 

[SkyShep]

Yeah, growing from seed is tough, they are so fragile at this stage. I am also far from the best plant caretaker, historically, so I know that if I get just a few trees to survive the first few years, I’ll be lucky. I’m just trying to learn as I go and not take it personally if I lose them.

I read a few of the threads in the Japanese Black Pine contest and it’s insane how many they are planting just to get a few good specimens! Makes me feel better about not having so much beginner’s luck. LOL

I definitely worried Fuki too much there at the outset. But she seems to be forgiving enough to recover from too much love. I was sure she was a goner there for a few weeks.

 

[SkyShep]

For the first time since the repotting in June, my Fukien tea has blossoms! And there are so many new leaves growing! I think I’ve rounded a corner with this one. Very happy tree mama, here!

 

[SkyShep]

My delonix regia seedlings are going bananas, growing all sorts of new shoots. Nothing on the other seeds. I fear they may have gotten too hot from too much direct sunlight. I have some new seeds coming in to stratify and plant - Japanese maple and more blue jacaranda (I WILL get one to grow for my mom, darn it!)

 

[SkyShep]

I dug up this pine volunteer from my parents’ back yard. I’m not sure of the species but it might be a ponderosa? Right now I’m just seeing if it survived the transplant process. I included a picture of a neighbor’s tree that is the species I think this one is.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Count the needles per bundle.
In general
Ponderosa has 3.
Here’s a simple guide for the CA etc area:

Got Pine? - Your 60-Second Guide to Naming your Pine

Pine Trees - How to recognize them and name them.

www.icogitate.com

Here’s an oldie but goodie guide:

http://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/1951-11--simple-key-to-the-pines.pdf

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[rawlyn]

If you confirm it's a Ponderosa after all, you might find this book interesting Ponderosa Pines as Bonsai - noticed it on sale at Stone Lantern when I was shopping today.

Good luck!

- Mike

 

[TomRVA]

Is Miss Fuki still alive and kicking? I’m Curious how it turned out..