My first Bonsai. Aleppo Pine, from seed. Guidance going forward

[TrevorLarsen]

Maybe it’s just me but I am not sure what you mean by steak the tree. I would wait to do a repot until spring.

 

[Bejzu]

Trunk needles are normal and will brown and fall off after a couple of years. Don't worry about them

Would they fall off on their own should I pull them off?

Any other tips at this stage? See picture below.

 

[Esolin]

If they are brown, you can remove them if you want, but they will fall off on their own eventually. Removing brown needles might be helpful if you wish to study the trunk for design ideas, but otherwise there's no hurry to take them off, and pulling too hard might damage the bark if they aren't quite ready to come off. I often brush them with a finger to see if they fall off easily or not, instead of pulling. Green trunk needles are place where the tree can still back bud and produce a branch, so don't remove green trunk needles unless you don't want the option of backbudding in that area.

Your tree is looking very happy and bushy. I would leave it alone for now to gain strength and let the trunk thicken up. Use this time to study how it grows and consider the ultimate design you want to aim for. Look at aleppos in nature and other bonsai pines to get ideas. You can do a lot of styles with this tree--it's still a blank slate. Once you decide, you can start selecting branches to remove/keep and where the front of your tree will be. But it probably needs to get bigger for you to do any of that.

 

[Bejzu]

Removing brown needles might be helpful if you wish to study the trunk for design ideas

Exactly why I want to remove them. Just to see the structure better. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Bejzu]

I have SO MANY questions.

1) Identification issue. The seeds I got were labelled and advertised as Aleppo Pine seeds however now mature needles are appearing and they are in 'bundles' of three. I was under the impression that Aleppo Pine mature needles come in group of two? See picture.
If that is so, then what tree do I have? Confused..

2) Needles. I prefer the look of immature/juvenile needles (because of scale) rather then mature needles which are much longer. So. How would you deal with this? Trim Mature needles to the length of the juvenile ones? remove them all together? I know the tree is still young but if it makes sense I'd still like to keep it looking as good as possible. See picture


3) Size. I'm ultimately not looking to have a huge tree. It is currently around 28cm tall. At most I would want it to be double that size. It is growing at a rapid rate so I do t expect it to take long to get there hight wise. Should I be thinking about pruning and ramification (newbie). Should I prune needles or branches or both or none?



Thanks in advance

 

[Bejzu]

Correction: apparently aleppos have 3 needles but I'm not absolutely certain. Help confirming would be great

 

[Esolin]

Aleppos are considered a 2-needle pine, but they will produce a mix of 2 and 3 needle clusters. This is normal in a healthy tree.

Maintaining consistent foliage is the tricky thing about Aleppos. It would not be good for the health of the tree to remove the mature needles, so people generally trim them to match the juvenile needles in length. They will never fully blend in though since they are a slightly different color. That's just the nature of Aleppo pine for bonsai.

But they do love to produce juvenile foliage when pruned, so you have that going for you. You will probably need to adopt some system of cutting the tree back at particular times of the year to get it to produce new shoots with young needles. The trick will be balancing this pruning with the health of the tree. Pruning too often will weaken it, especially as the tree gets older. Perhaps there is someone online who's documented their methods for maintaining juvenile on Aleppos. I'm not going that route with mine, so I can't be of much help there in terms of experience.

But I would still let to grow for now and gain strength. You can trim it hard in the Spring to stimulate a new push of juvenile buds.

 

[Bejzu]

Thanks for your feedback.

I'm not going that route with mine, so I can't be of much help there in terms of experience.

So you mean you will be maintaining yours with mature needles or both?

 

[Esolin]

Thanks for your feedback.

So you mean you will be maintaining yours with mature needles or both?

I'm going for a larger tree, specifically a long twisty literati, so I'm planning to eventually go for all mature needles.

I have several other seedlings though. I may decide to try keeping one in immature foliage, but that seems like more work in the long run, and my time to care for bonsai trees is already stretched thin. I have too many projects!

 

[Orion_metalhead]

I think you should post some examples of mature bonsai you like the style of so we can guide you to achieve thaf goal. Right now, the best advice is leave it alone and let it grow.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Should I stake the tree? Now or eventually?

Is tree a vampire? Until roots pruned tree should support self well enough. If growing long sacrifice trunk should likely support tree.

 

[Bejzu]

I think you should post some examples of mature bonsai you like the style of so we can guide you to achieve thaf goal. Right now, the best advice is leave it alone and let it grow.

Definitely. I have a picture of an actual Aleppo here in Malta that's awesome. And a picture of an aleppo bonsai with similar features.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Let it grow another year. Next year, wire the current apex to be your first low branch and wire a side shoot as new leader. Youll need to research candle techniques for the species and how to get backbudding.

Itll take many years of proper care to get to that point. I dont know needle reduction on the species but hopefully the mature needles will reduce. Good luck.

 

[Bejzu]

Let it grow another year. Next year, wire the current apex to be your first low branch and wire a side shoot as new leader. Youll need to research candle techniques for the species and how to get backbudding.

Itll take many years of proper care to get to that point. I dont know needle reduction on the species but hopefully the mature needles will reduce. Good luck.

Thanks for your feedback. Yes I understand this is a LONG term project. I just don't want to do something now that I will regret later. Hence the 100 questions.

 

[Bejzu]

Next year, wire the current apex to be your first low branch

Would that mean getting rid of everything beneath it?

 

[Orion_metalhead]

You could leave whats below to help thicken the trunk. Maybe you keep it. You have to use your own creativity.

 

[Esolin]

Those are beautiful trees, and the needle reduction in that bonsai is quite impressive. I wonder though--the color and umbrella like canopy of both trees makes me think of Italian Stone Pines. Stone Pines are a very similar species to Aleppo, but not 100% the same. Just wondering if you're certain about the species of the example trees. Regardless, Aleppo or Stone Pine should both work for such a design.

 

[Bejzu]

Just wondering if you're certain about the species of the example trees.

100% the real tree example is an Aleppo. This one on particular is in a more urban area so maybe it doesn't have the 'wild' look of those you find randomly in the wild, hence the umbrella canopy.
Regarding the Bonsai example, just going by the image description I found in Google. It's just an example of something similar I'd like to achieve. One day...

 

[Bejzu]

Is the Aleppo pine a single flush or multi flush species?

 

[czaczaja]

Is the Aleppo pine a single flush or multi flush species?

Good Thread