littletreefarmer
Sapling
Wanted to start a thread to document the journey of a Pitch Pine I collected with a friend in March of 2023.
The tree was originally found to be growing in a small pocket on top of a large granite boulder. I hiked to the tree in the Fall of 2022 to find that it had blown over in its pocket and significant damage had been caused to the apex. I lifted the tree to its original position and placed large rocks and moss at the base to hopefully stabilize it in place. When I got back to the tree to attempt collection the tree was still upright and stable and had very large buds and significant back budding. The tree was collected and planted in a 5 inch deep grow box in 100% pumice.
Growth for 2023 was vigorous as far as I could tell for the first year of monitoring with back bud sites producing candles and shoots, and the site of the original broken apex grew a new shoot of about 6-7 inches. No pruning or styling work was performed to the tree during 2023. The tree suffered no significant insect or fungal infestations. 2023 was, unfortunately, an extremely rainy year all around for us, but this tree didn't suffer any fungal infections or significant chlorosis.
These photos are from the day of collection (I have to get better about taking more photos), and in the second one you can see the size reference of the tree.
Here you can see (kinda) an update of growth in September 2023. Compare the density and length of needles between the photos, and I'd say that's some good growth.
I will get a nice update photo one day this weekend and post another update. Thanks for looking!
The tree was originally found to be growing in a small pocket on top of a large granite boulder. I hiked to the tree in the Fall of 2022 to find that it had blown over in its pocket and significant damage had been caused to the apex. I lifted the tree to its original position and placed large rocks and moss at the base to hopefully stabilize it in place. When I got back to the tree to attempt collection the tree was still upright and stable and had very large buds and significant back budding. The tree was collected and planted in a 5 inch deep grow box in 100% pumice.
Growth for 2023 was vigorous as far as I could tell for the first year of monitoring with back bud sites producing candles and shoots, and the site of the original broken apex grew a new shoot of about 6-7 inches. No pruning or styling work was performed to the tree during 2023. The tree suffered no significant insect or fungal infestations. 2023 was, unfortunately, an extremely rainy year all around for us, but this tree didn't suffer any fungal infections or significant chlorosis.
These photos are from the day of collection (I have to get better about taking more photos), and in the second one you can see the size reference of the tree.
Here you can see (kinda) an update of growth in September 2023. Compare the density and length of needles between the photos, and I'd say that's some good growth.
I will get a nice update photo one day this weekend and post another update. Thanks for looking!
