Species Suitability Uncle Fogy and Sunburst Lodgepole

Johnathan

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Pretty much nailed it all in the title. I was at a local nursery and came across a couple trees that I hadn't seen before. The first was a gnarly twisted Uncle Fogy Jack Pine, and the other was a stunning Sunburst Lodgepole.

Now, I know that I've come across people using Jack Pines and Lodgepole pines for bonsai before, but can these spinoffs be suitable bonsai candidates?

Also, for honorable mention. Anyone have any familiarity with Short Leaf Pine? Are they good for the hobby?
 

penumbra

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Personally I view both of these as specimens rather than bonsai potentials.
I came very close to buying an Uncle Foggy a couple weeks ago. It was an awesome contorted prostrate specimen that would look great as a container plant but the more I looked at it the more convinced I became that as a bonsai it was going to fight me all the way. One issue was that the internodes were really long and to get it more compact would require such butchery as to destroy what it was hoping to get what I wanted it to be. I probably will get one some day to put in a raised planter.
I have seen the Sunburst Lodgepole and hopefully I will have one in my landscape some day but I am very judicious about varieagated or aurea forms of plants for bonsai.
This is just my take.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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I have 3 named cultivars of Jack pine, P. banksiana. 'Manoment', 'Chippewa' and 'Schoodic', all are grafted, as it is the only way to get named varieties, because Jack pines simply do not air layer or root from cuttings. As a species I think Jack pine is proving pretty good for bonsai. I assume all 3 of my cultivars are on scotts pine understock, so I have found them easy to transplant and repot, that may be the influence of the P. sylvestris root stock. I do have a number of seedling P. banksiana, and seedlings have been perfectly "typical" in terms of handling repotting and root pruning. No difference from the seedlings and my other pines in how they handle repotting. Collected Jack pines are notorious for being touchy, and having a low survival rate. But seedlings and grafted trees seem fine, reasonably tolerant of "normal bonsai work".

Jack pine is a pine that needs a sharp cold winter. Its native range is almost entirely restricted to zone 5 and colder. These areas do not have long hot summers. I can not say whether that will be a problem in Oklahoma or not. If they are being sold at a local landscape nursery, I suspect they will be fine.

All 3 of my cultivars have shorter than typical needles, and shorter internodes. I have not owned an 'Uncle Fogy', but the needle length on seedling P. banksiana seems workable, only a little longer than sylvestris needles.

I would look at the graft union of the 'Uncle Fogy', if the graft union looks like it is healing well, and will fade with time, I would give it a try. If the graft union is mismatched, or looking ugly, I would consider passing on the tree.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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P. banksiana do back bud on older wood. They are not as profuse with buds as sylvestris or mugo, but they definitely do back bud. So banksiana, jack pines, seem to have everything you need to make them into bonsai. I have been using Vance Wood's calendar for Mugo techniques for my jack pines. BUT my climate is nearly identical to Vance's.

In Oklahoma, you can either follow the calendar for mugo, or the calendar for scots pine, sylvestris. This should work.

Remember, jack pines are really a single flush pine. You might get a minor second flush of growth, but it is not sufficient to treat them as a double flush pine. So I do all my pruning late summer.

I have no experience with P. contorta, so I made no comment about them.
 

andrewiles

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I came across a lodgepole labeled "Taylor's Sunburst" at a nursery yesterday and picked it up. Suffered some dieback on one side but has some movement. A bit confused because the needles are yellow, but these are from last year. This year's candles are just starting to elongate. Apparently the Sunburst cultivar has yellow needles for about 6 weeks each spring before they harden and fade to dark green, so not sure what's up with this one.

It is grafted, but the graft is very hard to see. Only the single green shoot below the graft, and a slight difference in bark texture, give it away.

Anyone with experience on this one? I gather P. contortas can be a bit hard to work with but figured I'd give it a try. I like the shape. And needles are surprisingly small. It's in a 15" Anderson deep prop flat for scale.

Probably chop off that high, large left-most branch, but want to get it healthy first.

pine.png
 

PerryB

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I saw a large Schoodic Pine cascade bonsai over the weekend in the collection of an older gentleman who needs to reduce his collection. It was about 24" from the rim of the pot down to the low apex (?). Nicely ramified, with good movement down the length of the main trunk, and good (but not great) nefarious. It was in a 10" octagonal pot; there's no obvious graft but then it's probably 30 years old; the needles are SO cool and short.
I've been losing sleep over this tree, but feel like I can't afford a non-insulting offer on it!
 
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