Virginia Pine-- refinement and techniques?

[ForrestW]

Many of my trees are native to Western North Carolina, as when I started into bonsai I wanted to explore the trees growing on my property. This one is I believe a Virginia Pine and one I pulled up from the ground as a 1-2 year seedling about 20 years ago. In the last 3-4 seasons I have been working on designing it but I really do not have much knowledge of what refinement can look like with this species- or should strive towards. I am somewhat limited by the amount of sunlight I get-- 5-6 hour of direct light. I know that is not ideal for pines and for that reason I only own 2 (both are natives I started 20ish years ago) The only thing I have done aside from general pruning is to let the candles elongate in the spring, and then break them off at different lengths to try and balance the foliage mass/vigor to encourage lower branches to stay strong. I have never done any needle plucking, and I know most pines I see the final placement of new growth as all pointing up however this tree in nature does not seem to project that. It feels a little more wild and organic. On a Bonsai Nut search I found a nice windswept clump, but aside from that I have not see any bonsai examples that are in a refinement stage.

So... If you are willing to share any photos of your Virginia Pine bonsai, or offer any suggestions on care-- especially towards refinement I would be grateful.
You are always welcome to offer design ideas as well. I am showing photos from the last 4 years when it went from a Mica pot, to a oversized Bunin pot, to a slab pot I made this past year. I always feel like after I wire a tree up, then take a photo-- the 2-d does not feel as interesting as the 3-d in reality.

 

[GGB]

Nice, this is my favorite pine in the US. I have a very green thumb but for some reason can't keep that species healthy. But John G has some super dope examples. He likes styling his to mimic lobloly pines. https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/a-couple-more-virginia-pines.23741/#post-362501

 

[ForrestW]

Nice, this is my favorite pine in the US. I have a very green thumb but for some reason can't keep that species healthy. But John G has some super dope examples. He likes styling his to mimic lobloly pines. https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/a-couple-more-virginia-pines.23741/#post-362501

Thank you-- and I appreciate the link to Johns trees, that is a logical place to look. I am not sure why when I used the search feature for Virginia Pine, that did not pop up.

 

[GGB]

Thank you-- and I appreciate the link to Johns trees, that is a logical place to look. I am not sure why when I used the search feature for Virginia Pine, that did not pop up.

yeah, I'm not super handy with the search bar on this site myself. I only knew from experience that was somewhere on the site haha and I knew who posted it, which makes all the difference

 

[BonsaiMattey]

Many of my trees are native to Western North Carolina, as when I started into bonsai I wanted to explore the trees growing on my property. This one is I believe a Virginia Pine and one I pulled up from the ground as a 1-2 year seedling about 20 years ago. In the last 3-4 seasons I have been working on designing it but I really do not have much knowledge of what refinement can look like with this species- or should strive towards. I am somewhat limited by the amount of sunlight I get-- 5-6 hour of direct light. I know that is not ideal for pines and for that reason I only own 2 (both are natives I started 20ish years ago) The only thing I have done aside from general pruning is to let the candles elongate in the spring, and then break them off at different lengths to try and balance the foliage mass/vigor to encourage lower branches to stay strong. I have never done any needle plucking, and I know most pines I see the final placement of new growth as all pointing up however this tree in nature does not seem to project that. It feels a little more wild and organic. On a Bonsai Nut search I found a nice windswept clump, but aside from that I have not see any bonsai examples that are in a refinement stage.

So... If you are willing to share any photos of your Virginia Pine bonsai, or offer any suggestions on care-- especially towards refinement I would be grateful.
You are always welcome to offer design ideas as well. I am showing photos from the last 4 years when it went from a Mica pot, to a oversized Bunin pot, to a slab pot I made this past year. I always feel like after I wire a tree up, then take a photo-- the 2-d does not feel as interesting as the 3-d in reality.

this is one of the oldest Virginia pine bonsais i have seen being worked on. Looks great!

 

[ForrestW]

this is one of the oldest Virginia pine bonsais i have seen being worked on. Looks great!

Thank you-- I will post and update in a little while once the new candles open up. I did cut off the top to reduce it another inch.

 

[ForrestW]

I went to get some advice on my tree from a friend of mine who is an expert on Black pines and he had some heavy copper wire and helped me move the branches in a lot tighter. I will do more detail work late summer once it recovers a little, and I hope to start to get more ramification over the next few years especially to better develop the apex. But here is just a spring update.-- Rob

 

[ETN_bonsai]

I was nosing around the woods on my property and discovered a decent number of young trees sired from the four adult Virginia Pine growing in a semi-cleared area. I think it used to be a logging trail in decades past.
Either way, I’ve made a mental note of a few VP (as well as some ERC) I plan to collect this winter/spring after seeing this thread and a few others. The trees seem to grow fairly quickly in the wooded area, so I think I’ll move them to tree garden just inside the front yard to let them put on some size.

 

[johng]

Hey buddy! I have been playing with some VP for probably 12-15 years. I have done some experimenting but generally I have been treating them like JBP by removing all of this years growth some time in mid summer. I find that I can cut back into last year's needles (beyond this year's growth) and get fairly reliable back budding. They can be very vigorous growers so I have opted to prune a little later than what most folks do on there JBP...mid to late July is what I am doing. To me, yours looks like it could use more sun but I know that is a challenge in your yard...long needles...mine are shorter...could be the result of a couple seasons of later pruning. Still have yet to achieve the foliage density that a JBP is capable of. I have to keep up on the ferts or mine look pretty yellow a lot of the time. This has been better this year with the added application of osmocote plus.

 

[ForrestW]

Thanks John, I appreciate the feedback. My tree could definitely use a little more light, however I have never done a mid summer removal-- as most years I have treated it more like a single flush pine and just focused on trunk and primary branch development. So some of the long growth may be attributed to that. As I only have 2 pines-- both started as seedlings, I am just now exploring how to refine them and build a ramified tree. This year I bare rooted it and repotted it so I again just let it grow. I hope that I will get shorter needles in future years as I start trying to do more mid summer hard cut backs. Your trees are excellent examples and are inspiring! Do you know what ever happened to the one at the NC arboretum that was donated by Felton Jones-- it was a semi cascade?

 

[johng]

Thanks John, I appreciate the feedback. My tree could definitely use a little more light, however I have never done a mid summer removal-- as most years I have treated it more like a single flush pine and just focused on trunk and primary branch development. So some of the long growth may be attributed to that. As I only have 2 pines-- both started as seedlings, I am just now exploring how to refine them and build a ramified tree. This year I bare rooted it and repotted it so I again just let it grow. I hope that I will get shorter needles in future years as I start trying to do more mid summer hard cut backs. Your trees are excellent examples and are inspiring! Do you know what ever happened to the one at the NC arboretum that was donated by Felton Jones-- it was a semi cascade?

Do not know what happened to Felton's tree?? I know AJ accidentally killed several pines with neem oil...maybe that was one of them...I know he was crushed...

 

[ForrestW]

Do not know what happened to Felton's tree?? I know AJ accidentally killed several pines with neem oil...maybe that was one of them...I know he was crushed...

so no neem oil on pines??? good to know-- I use it on most of my trees.

 

[Gabler]

It's been my experience that neem oil usually does more harm than good. Infuse took care of a needle blight problem on my Virginia pines that nothing else seemed to help.