ITALIAN STONE PINE; Pinus Pinea from nursery stock

[Wulfskaar]

I've had mine over a year now and it survived my harsh root pruning pretty well. I'll be asking you guys a few questions soon regarding where to go next.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

You dont see too many nice looking stone pines, so you’ve done really well. I have one I’ve been fooling around with for a couple years, I prefer to keep it juvenile.

Yes, for small or medium size the best option is to keep them with juvenile foliage like Canary island pines

 

[aframe]

It would be wonderful if you could find a way to reduce needle size on this tree without causing it to revert to juvenile growth. Beautiful trunk.

The needle lengths are reducing nicely with ramification

 

[Wulfskaar]

I have a question about mine...

I plan to cut the top half off and keep some of the lower branches, but only the top half are actually getting candles and growing. I would hate to kill it by removing the only part that is currently growing.

If I do cut the top off, will it add significant strength to the lower branches? The red line is where I plan to chop to get the more natural umbrella shape of a mature stone pine. It could possibly be higher but pretty much all the newer growth is above the line.

 

[Esolin]

I'm no pine expert, but I think it's common practice to leave the leader on developing pines, but remove all its side branches to keep the bottom branches strong. Like so:


Doing this keeps vigor and thickens the trunk, but encourages the pine to keep those lower branches growing too, until you're ready to start refining. Even if you're happy with the current trunk thickness, this approach might be the safer bet since you aren't seeing a lot of low growth right now. Maybe. Again, I'm no expert.

 

[Wulfskaar]

I'm no pine expert, but I think it's common practice to leave the leader on developing pines, but remove all its side branches to keep the bottom branches strong. Like so:
View attachment 432955

Doing this keeps vigor and thickens the trunk, but encourages the pine to keep those lower branches growing too, until you're ready to start refining. Even if you're happy with the current trunk thickness, this approach might be the safer bet since you aren't seeing a lot of low growth right now. Maybe. Again, I'm no expert.

Very interesting! Thank you. I will definitely consider that going forward.

I'll go ahead and move my discussion to my own thread and stop hijacking this one. https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/pinus-pinea-for-a-beginner.47215/

 

[Dave704]

Are the Pinus pinea sold as mini Christmas trees grafted? Nursing graft or any unusual techniques? I bought 6 in 1 gallon nursery pots from the markdown bin after Christmas 2020, cleaned them up, changed the trunk angle without disturbing the root ball and wired the trunk. All of them developed substantial reverse taper just above the root collar to what appears to be a graft, within an inch. If grafted it is impressive as it is a barely noticeable ring around the trunk perfectly horizontal. On close examination the bark is slightly different above and below the ring. I have air layered all of them above the reverse taper, slipped the tree into a 3 gallon pot and buried the air layer. They have rooted very well and next spring I plan to remove the original root system. The trees have the "knots" on the trunk at the branches. They are tot pretty however unique and I do not know how to avoid the knots. The foliage is still 95% small needle juvenile with a few candles big needle mature foliage. Any information, advice, and suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks Dave

 

[Bonsai_Brett]

Heres the progression:
Nov '17 x2, Nov '19, Aug. '20 x2, Jul '21 (front & back).

That’sa nice progression

 

[Bonsai_Brett]

The JBP grafts were successful. I cut them off b/c I like original foliage - soft, light green mature needles look great with the rough, light grey bark. I had grafted for 2 reasons - the material was pretty bad: lots of awkward branching and foliage far from trunk, and to practice grafting and see if JBP would take on P. Pinea, there wasn't much info on Pinea w/ mature foliage. I grafted lower on the tree and I'll let you all know the grafts seemed weak, I cut them off about 1.5 years after, memory not real sharp on this one.

What are you doing to get the needles to reduce in size?

 

[Bonsai_Brett]

Yes, for small or medium size the best option is to keep them with juvenile foliage like Canary island pines

How is this accomplished?

 

[Ruddigger]

How is this accomplished?

I do it by pinching new growth like a spruce, and removing any mature needles that pop up.

 

[aframe]

What are you doing to get the needles to reduce in size?

Basically by following the JBP decandling technique: decandle around Father's day, thin to 2 shoots early fall, needle pluck to balance energy. repeat. Ramification really helps.

 

[Wulfskaar]

Just a note: As an experiment couple years ago, I cut a candle in half and 4 new shoots arose out of that. It might be a way to gain ramification.

 

[Bonsai_Brett]

3.2.2022
View attachment 422455

Looks good!!!