Baby White Pines. Growing on...

LGTilley · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:18 am Post subject: Baby White Pines. Growing on...

Here are some baby White Pines http://www.lgtilley.freeserve.co.uk/pines.htm I grew them from seed when I first thought of having a go at bonsai, and before I read thay you don't have to do it all the way from seed. But I couldn't just chuck 'em out, could I? I think they're in their 3rd year now. My books were more confusing than helpful in the sections about "candle plucking" at different stages and different lengths and none of them seemed to be thinking of poor old me, with just one "candle" on each little seedling. So I just snapped them off at different lengths/times to one another. You can see the variation that resulted.

But I'm a bit stuck for inspiration now. I don't want to shove them in the ground for a few years as some tend to advocate - I could buy field grown plants with 2ft of bare trunk. (And the rabbits and weeds would beat them in my garden anyway). I need to know how to train them to get side growth and so on. Can I do anything about the needle size?

Tuppence2

Very nice to see your seedlings doing so well. I have a tray, and five little pots, of much smaller seedlings than yours (mixed pine seeds from eBay). Hope they grow on like yours.

I would leave them awhile and let them grow on without doing much to them in the way of styling. When they're bigger they will probably give you much more of an idea what to do with them.

Good luck.

Penny Smile

Dick

Pinching out the main candle down to the base will force the secondary and lateral candles to grow more vigorously. The pinching them back to half will help to establish branching.

BTW, rabbits do not eat pines. They resin is distastful to most animals. So field growing is a possibility to thicken them up a bit.