Ryceman3's 6yr JBP Contest Entry

[JeffS73]

Thats an explosion of buds about to happen!

 

[Ryceman3]

Thats an explosion of buds about to happen!

The explosion happened ... pics below are a "wrap up" of summer for my pines in the ground, since today marks the beginning of autumn (fall) for us here in Australia. Those buds extended over the last month and some will be the beginnings of branching for this tree.


A shot of the base / developing nebari (with and without my thumb for scale, which is just over an inch wide)


The below image has an arrow indicating where the initial sacrifice was removed, with the red line in the same image indicating the replacement sacrifice. It is nice and low, and from what I can tell in my assessment, positioned at the back of the tree so I'm happy with that.

Meanwhile, up at the top of the sacrifice, the buds are looking pretty good too ...

The below shot is of all my pines I have in the ground. The ones in the foreground are the JBP I planted from seed for this competition, with the one in the centre front being the subject of the photos above. There are 9 JBP in total. The ones behind are Japanese Red Pine and a few Scots Pine too.

Here's a couple of shots of some of the bases of the other JBP shown above. Some will be more suited to shohin than others, which I might grow on for slightly bigger bonsai.


That's pretty much it for where these ground grown ones are at after summer. It wasn't the best weather this year, pretty cold and wet in comparison to the norm but I am still happy with the growth rate on these. I have put down a bit more fertiliser to kick them along with some autumn growth, and I'll be digging up to check on the roots in about 6 months or so. This is a really fun and rewarding project, I look forward to continuing the development.

 

[Ryceman3]

Here's one of the pot grown pines I did a bit of work on today. This one is about average size for these kind, the base is probably just on 1" (25mm) at the soil line. Realistically I'm not sure if these will make the cut for my final entry, but I think they will still make great little trees and I thought I might show what my strategy is in developing them.





In transitioning from the top sacrifice to the lower one as my next big move, I am looking for taper. The initial sacrifice, coming directly from the top helped thicken things up, but because it's from the top it thickens EVERYTHING below. With the lower one (blue) developing I should get thickening only BELOW where it joins the trunkline ... and therefore taper. We'll see how that goes ...

 

[Ryceman3]

I was back to the ground growing pines on the weekend, and took the opportunity to dig a few and see what was what.
I was very happy with the way the roots were growing, still a LOT of fine stuff up close to the trunks ... I think that is the result of creating a good base before letting them loose. I feel like I have timed it pretty well, another 6 months in the grow beds and I think these would be too big for what I am aiming to achieve ... they range in trunk widths of somewhere around 45 - 90mm (1.75" - 3.5") , not including roots/nebari. I'll post a few shots of the digging process at some stage soon, but right now here are some pics of the 5 I potted up and brought back home with me. All I need to do now is figure out where I'm going to put them.
Most likely my final entry will come from one of these, they are well ahead of my pot grown versions in terms of development, although I'll keep persisting with them too. All these need to be needle plucked and shoots rationalised back to 2 as they are super dense, but I'll be waiting a couple of months for them to recover before I move on to that I think.

 

[Ryceman3]

Just realized I'd neglected to post a few shots of the digging process as promised ... so here they are.

 

[Ruddigger]

Wow, that’s some killer progress in a short period of time.

 

[namnhi]

This put what I still have left to shame!

 

[rollwithak]

Just realized I'd neglected to post a few shots of the digging process as promised ... so here they are.

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Looking friggin awesome!!! Did you have it in a basket while it was in the ground?

 

[hemmy]

Wow! I don’t think there was any doubt that ground growing/escape roots was going to beat colanders/pots for gaining girth. But the strength and density of low branching that you have maintained is very impressive!

 

[Ryceman3]

This put what I still have left to shame!

Thanks, but don't give up ... there's still plenty of time left for stuff to happen!

Looking friggin awesome!!! Did you have it in a basket while it was in the ground?

Hi, no baskets/colanders involved, but I did do some pretty extensive prep work on the roots before they went in the ground to try and make sure there was stuff to cut back to when it came time to lift them after they had been left to run. I think that work early paid off in this case. Hope that helps.

 

[Ryceman3]

I repotted some of the smaller "pot grown" ones yesterday. Definitely nowhere near the girth but I am still pretty happy with the root development and I think (while it might take longer) these could eventually become nice bonsai too. Probably slightly more refined since the growth (both in terms of roots and branching) has been a little more controlled. Crazy amounts of mychorrizal growth on a few of them too! I did 6, but still plenty more to get through in the coming week or two.

 

[DirkvanDreven]

Very good work!

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Wow great work.

I was going to say something about lifting and repotting in the middle of summer, then I realized, you are south of the equator, this is late winter or early spring for you. Perfect time to lift trees.

 

[Ryceman3]

Just to keep the updates … well… up to date, I repotted the neagari style pine I first posted in this thread (post 27) today. Looks to be developing pretty nicely. I have begun peeling back the plastic to reveal the roots, will be interested to see how things go as more of the root mass gets revealed. It’s kinda like opening a present!

 

[Ryceman3]

It's been 7 weeks or so since I dug up the ground grown pines, and with candles extending and generally looking healthy I thought I would put some work in again today. Trunk girth is pretty much at the size I want, so to rein that in I am removing the sacrifices and thinning out to something more structured and to let light in to ensure health in the shoots remains. The aim from here is to get on with building a good branching structure, so it's a change in direction/focus for these ones. Here's the first cab off the rank.

 

[Ryceman3]

...and another one that I had a look at ... same methodology applied as for the tree above ...

 

[Fonz]

Please stop posting these pictures. Makes me want to give up on the contest

 

[DirkvanDreven]

Please stop posting these pictures. Makes me want to give up on the contest

I'll post mine. To make you feel better!

 

[Stella]

love to follow your progression.
makes it a bit easier to plan my work following your timeline in creating my schedule for the southern hemisphere.

will be searching for a place to get mine in the ground asap - next year as i have already repotted for this season

 

[Ryceman3]

More work done over the Christmas period on the JBP that were ground grown. They have re-settled into pot life very well so looked to prune and decandle some areas that I wanted to push back/compress the growth on and left sacrifices/thinned out for light/air flow in other areas where I wanted to continue development. It's a bit of a balancing act until I can get all areas developed enough that decandling becomes the way forward on the entire tree as it moves into "refinement". I'm quite happy with where things are heading on these. I'll be down to check on the remaining pines I have in the ground over the next week so look forward to seeing how they are going. They've been pretty much neglected since July ... should be interesting.

BEFORE ...

AFTER ...