Pines from seed

[cmeg1]

Hello ,all.This seedling is from another pine project I started.I planted 9 seedlings in pots.I am satisfied with that.I find pines(so far)to be very fast growing and resiliant.I have seen pines from seed this method,and in five years they start to look really cool.I will probally start training at beginning of 3rd year.
I do not have much room for big bonsai.I have dug a couple deep cold frames to keep my trees in.That is what I am doing.It is working .The longest I have cared for a tree is about 16 months and it is doing really good.

 

[Klytus]

It's excellent,in the future you too will be able to boast someone mentioned they would pay $3000 for this tree!

I look forward to your charting of the progress.

 

[cmeg1]

It's excellent,in the future you too will be able to boast someone mentioned they would pay $3000 for this tree!

I look forward to your charting of the progress.

Thank you.As far as tracking progress of trees,I cannot believe how easy it is getting to do so with these phones.I am talking photo albums for each bonsai,backed-up safely in on-line/cloud storage or what have you.I snap a picture with my phone and all I have to do is enter my house and they automatically appear on my computers,too easy.When I retire I can have each album printed if I wish with the push of a button.

 

[Bill S]

Don't forget the entering of the credit card #

Here to a Kimura tree in the making.

 

[cmeg1]

Don't forget the entering of the credit card #

Here to a Kimura tree in the making.

Yea right,the app store is just raking it in .99 cents at a time.

And yes,to the tree.

 

[Vance Wood]

Yea right,the app store is just raking it in .99 cents at a time.

And yes,to the tree.

$.99 a call times 1,000,000 a day adds up to a sizable chunk of moola.

 

[pwk5017]

Did you cut this seedling when it germinated? I have been growing pines from seed for about 4-5 years now(started when I was a sophomore in college) and I can tell you they are alot of fun to train from a young age. A lot of people will tell you that you are wasting your time blah, blah, blah. With the right fert. schedule, soil, watering etc. you can have great results from year to year. If you are serious about growing them from seed, make sure you cut them when they germinate. I wish I had done this the first 3 years I worked with them, but I didnt. You just cant compared to the nebari results. Anyways, I just wanted to add my encouragement, keep updating them year to year.

 

[Vance Wood]

Did you cut this seedling when it germinated? I have been growing pines from seed for about 4-5 years now(started when I was a sophomore in college) and I can tell you they are alot of fun to train from a young age. A lot of people will tell you that you are wasting your time blah, blah, blah. With the right fert. schedule, soil, watering etc. you can have great results from year to year. If you are serious about growing them from seed, make sure you cut them when they germinate. I wish I had done this the first 3 years I worked with them, but I didnt. You just cant compared to the nebari results. Anyways, I just wanted to add my encouragement, keep updating them year to year.

I agree but with one caveat; if seed culture is going to be your introduction into bonsai. Too slow, too complicated, and too risky. The failure rate from species worth the effort can drive you crazy. JMHO

 

[Ang3lfir3]

I agree but with one caveat; if seed culture is going to be your introduction into bonsai. Too slow, too complicated, and too risky. The failure rate from species worth the effort can drive you crazy. JMHO

gotta agree with Vance... of course... you can't let seeds be your only avenue ... luckily other threads have show us the OP has some other trees, so these will be fun to work on in 20 years or so... less if you want some tiny shohins...

 

[tmmason10]

gotta agree with Vance... of course... you can't let seeds be your only avenue ... luckily other threads have show us the OP has some other trees, so these will be fun to work on in 20 years or so... less if you want some tiny shohins...

I am giving JBP from seed a try this spring as well. Also got some trident seeds in the fridge to try too. But I know these are super long term if any survive, but I still one day would like to have the satisfaction of saying I grew it from seed. Until then I will obviously have to buy material that someone else has taken the liberty of starting for me.

 

[Thomas J.]

For those of you who are planning to start some JBP from seed, you will be doing yourself a huge favor by first planting at least 25 seeds and after the stems start show a purpleish color, slice the stem just a little above the roots and apply a rooting hormone. You will then have a cutting from which hopefully most will put out new roots. With this you now have the advantage to get lower branches on your seedling cutting and will be able to spread the roots and have a better looking nebari than you would otherwise.

But even if you don't do this, the most important thing is after the first year when transplanting your seedling, do it in a collander as shown in the pic. This tree is only three years old and the pic was taken last March before the summer growing season. Right now the trunk is a bit more fatter than shown here. The collander method does really good for thickening a trunk.

At this time you will also along with transplanting it in the collander, be wrapping wire around the trunk tight enough to bend and shape the trunk. You will also allow the wire to bite into the trunk for the first year at least causing the trunk to be able to thicken up even more because of this. You just need to keep an eye on the wire so it doesn't get swallowed up by the thickening trunk. Don't worry as the small scaring will heal itself.

Whatever you do don't leave a seedling in a bonsai pot and expect it to do anything but stay small and thin.

 

[FrankP999]

....wrapping wire around the trunk tight enough to bend and shape the trunk. QUOTE]

Can you please elaborate on the first wiring and first bending/shaping the trunk? I have some one year old pine seedlings in colanders but I have not yet applied wire. Thanks

 

[Thomas J.]

Well about as much as I can say is you need to anchor a piece of wire, preferably copper since it holds it shape so good,down through the soil and wrap it around the trunk up as high as you can which shouldn't be a problem with a one yr. old seedling, and begin to bend the trunk into your desired shape. The first two pics below show what I did and you can notice the improvement from March till November on this trees trunk. The last pic is what I'm shooting for since this seedling was cut like I mentioned earlier to give it lower branching and hopefully a great nebari like this one.

 

[pwk5017]

gotta agree with Vance... of course... you can't let seeds be your only avenue ... luckily other threads have show us the OP has some other trees, so these will be fun to work on in 20 years or so... less if you want some tiny shohins...

And I would say that if you limit yourself to only one avenue, you arent fully engaged in this hobby. This can be applied to only growing seedlings or only having finished trees in your collection. Just my two cents, but if I didnt have trees in every stage of the bonsai process I would lose interest in the hobby.

 

[cmeg1]

Did you cut this seedling when it germinated? I have been growing pines from seed for about 4-5 years now(started when I was a sophomore in college) and I can tell you they are alot of fun to train from a young age. A lot of people will tell you that you are wasting your time blah, blah, blah. With the right fert. schedule, soil, watering etc. you can have great results from year to year. If you are serious about growing them from seed, make sure you cut them when they germinate. I wish I had done this the first 3 years I worked with them, but I didnt. You just cant compared to the nebari results. Anyways, I just wanted to add my encouragement, keep updating them year to year.

Hello,thanks for the kind remark.Actually I did not cut any of my seedlings.I did see that in the Pines book.I am slightly worried that I will not get low branches now with my pines I have in colanders from seed,but I am going to bend them down this fall and give a good low twist to them,that should be low enough.As far as roots,I fed all my pines Great White mychorriza and the roots were very spreading in most of them,I layed them as flat as possible.I am not that worried about extremely low branching on the potted seedlings.I have seen amazing progression in Bonsai Today of potted seedlings.In five years or so they start to look really amazing with proper pinching.

 

[cmeg1]

I am giving JBP from seed a try this spring as well. Also got some trident seeds in the fridge to try too. But I know these are super long term if any survive, but I still one day would like to have the satisfaction of saying I grew it from seed. Until then I will obviously have to buy material that someone else has taken the liberty of starting for me.

Hello.I think you should get the Pines book from stone lantern.It is tailored to the mid atlantic region.

 

[cmeg1]

For those of you who are planning to start some JBP from seed, you will be doing yourself a huge favor by first planting at least 25 seeds and after the stems start show a purpleish color, slice the stem just a little above the roots and apply a rooting hormone. You will then have a cutting from which hopefully most will put out new roots. With this you now have the advantage to get lower branches on your seedling cutting and will be able to spread the roots and have a better looking nebari than you would otherwise.

But even if you don't do this, the most important thing is after the first year when transplanting your seedling, do it in a collander as shown in the pic. This tree is only three years old and the pic was taken last March before the summer growing season. Right now the trunk is a bit more fatter than shown here. The collander method does really good for thickening a trunk.

At this time you will also along with transplanting it in the collander, be wrapping wire around the trunk tight enough to bend and shape the trunk. You will also allow the wire to bite into the trunk for the first year at least causing the trunk to be able to thicken up even more because of this. You just need to keep an eye on the wire so it doesn't get swallowed up by the thickening trunk. Don't worry as the small scaring will heal itself.

Whatever you do don't leave a seedling in a bonsai pot and expect it to do anything but stay small and thin.

Looks great.I am going to wire my colander pines in fall.I have 5 now,but have 10 more colanders on the way and still have a pot full of seedlings.I never did cut the stems,but the roots seemed very abundant and spreading in the ones I planted.Hopefully that is good.Thanks for the great pic of what I've got to look forward to.Here is one of mine.

 

[BoneSci]

Here's a helpful link for when these pines get larger: http://www.bonsaisite.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20445. About halfway down is an awesome post by Brent Walston that has a TON of info on how to grow out JBPs. I look forward to seeing the progress of these pines, as I have limited myself so far to deciduous seedlings.

Chris

 

[bwaynef]

The best resource I've found onilne for growing pines FROM SEED is here. I'm hoping to have something close to these results in a year or so.

 

[sdavis]

Where do you get the colanders?