ysrgrathe's contest entry thread

[dirk hoorelbeke]

They all look huge and healthy... Great head start after one year. Thanks for the info.

 

[ysrgrathe]

Potted up 10 pines today into medium colanders. It's really too early to twist them but I put some bends on a few.

 

[ysrgrathe]

And if bending this early is crazy, here is some true insanity.

 

[moke]

And if bending this early is crazy, here is some true insanity.

You done gone crazy, and I dig it!!! Grafting WTF can’t wait to see what happens.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Is it a different pine you graft or are you not sure they will bud back at the right location? Nice to see they are this big already.

 

[ysrgrathe]

The graft is JWP. I had some extra scions prepped so I figured I'd see if I could build ramification while growing the trunk.

 

[ysrgrathe]

Last week I started fertilizing, added some organic (Espoma Plant-tone) and chemical (Osmocote Plus) fertilizers. I like to use the Osmocote Plus for the minors. I will rotate every 2 weeks adding either additional solid fertilizer (to trees that don't have fertilizer bags) or a combination of liquid fertilizers (DynaGro + Protekt, fish emulsion). Dyna-Gro also has minors.

I also treated with Thiophanate-methyl 2.08% (e.g. Bonide Infuse 60514), about 1/2tsp per pot.

I am getting ready to clear out excess seedlings as I have way too many for my benches now that I potted everything up. PM me if you had winter troubles and need a few contest trees.

 

[ysrgrathe]

A couple of the stronger candidates. The one on the right has 10 branches and no fewer than 15 buds in addition to that -- hopefully this propensity for backbudding will be retained in the years to come!

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I'm wondering if I should pot mine up into bigger containers. I was planning on keeping them in the small containers this year, but seeing yours in colanders makes me wonder.

 

[ysrgrathe]

This year I repotted my 2017 pines. All of the ones in 5-6" colanders were massively overgrowing their pots at 2 years in, one to the extent that it seemed to be starting to show water stress. So this time I put some in the larger (9"?) colanders, will have to see if that ends up being overpotted. I do also have some in the smaller colanders and plan to up-pot a few of those in summer. My n-count might be too small to draw any conclusions but I'll do my best to keep track!

 

[River's Edge]

This year I repotted my 2017 pines. All of the ones in 5-6" colanders were massively overgrowing their pots at 2 years in, one to the extent that it seemed to be starting to show water stress. So this time I put some in the larger (9"?) colanders, will have to see if that ends up being overpotted. I do also have some in the smaller colanders and plan to up-pot a few of those in summer. My n-count might be too small to draw any conclusions but I'll do my best to keep track!

Good Plan. I found that the majority of JBP after year three were ready for grow boxes! They did outgrow the smaller colandars quickly which was why i shifted them to putting the colandar in the grow beds and managing the escaping roots for year two and year three, they were only in small pots 4inch for year one after root cutting.

 

[ysrgrathe]

I finally threw out the rest of my 2018 batch. Interestingly while top growth was comparable among the photos below, the two non-seedling cuttings have much better root systems -- despite being in the same substrate. The wimp was only in a 2.25" x 6" band pot, but I pulled others that were in 5"x8" band pots and the roots were comparable. The main difference might be the non-cuttings were in a wide shallow tray which produced roots more conducive to potting up.

Since these were extras, I figured I'd experiment -- on two I plan to let the trees swallow the wire, on the third I lashed together three seedlings. My teacher always said we don't do this, guess I will find out why!

Labeled NC Spr19 = not a cutting, spring 19 repot

 

[ysrgrathe]

Late June update, spring candles are open. I twisted the pines today; last year I waited until August/September and some were too thick to twist tightly. Most of these are in the 1/4-3/8" range. Even the ones in 10" colanders are starting to grow out of the bottoms now, so I'll pot up the few remaining ones still in 6" colanders.

 

[moke]

Looking great man!!! WOW!!!

 

[ysrgrathe]

My pines are getting bigger and I'm now running out of space! Repurposed the top of my shade house to let a few spread out. These are 1-, 2- and 5-year seedlings. It's hard to tell some of the 2- and 5-year ones apart so hopefully I am improving horticulturally if not stylistically.

 

[River's Edge]

My pines are getting bigger and I'm now running out of space! Repurposed the top of my shade house to let a few spread out. These are 1-, 2- and 5-year seedlings. It's hard to tell some of the 2- and 5-year ones apart so hopefully I am improving horticulturally if not stylistically.

Trees are looking well cared for, good job. Pay no attention to the naysayers with respect to your Chinese pots You are not alone, there are others who understand that they have their purpose!

 

[ysrgrathe]

Unwired the pine I'd done early in the year, wired the last couple that hadn't been done previously. On quite a few of the pines wired in June the wire is already cutting in after two months! The famous article says to let it cut in a bit (not too much!) on the first wiring, so I'll wait and see.

The best performers are about finger width in thickness now.

 

[ysrgrathe]

Pines are just over 2 years old now. Today I repotted a handful from 10" pots to 12.5" pots. Same process for all of them:

• combed out just the last 1/2" or so from the sides using a root hook
• used a 3-prong rake to gently tease out the matted bottom roots
• used bent-nose tweezers to comb out the top 1/4" or so of soil
• trimmed back sides and bottom of rootball (you can see in my rootball photo some crossing roots that I went back and cut -- they should all be growing out or down)
• trimmed any top roots that were going up, crossing, or seemed too thick

Repotted back into medium Boon mix over large pumice, last 1/2" used small soil.

Best performers are 23" tall and 0.75" trunk width at 1" from soil.

 

[ysrgrathe]

What a difference a month makes, I now have huuuuge candles on these! And some cones. I usually remove these cones very early thinking it will keep the tree's energy focused on foliage. Is this a good practice? Is there a right time to remove them?

 

[Forsoothe!]

FYI. Seeds of special varieties, like 'Mikawa' in the first post will not produce 'Mikawa' seedlings, with very few rare exceptions. Even if stated in the descriptions, " Pinus thunbergii 'Mikawa' x (insert named variety here)" the likelihood that the seedlings will have the characteristics of the named variety are slim to to none. In those cases where they do inherit the special or unusual characteristics, the seller will state the percentage range that can be expected, perhaps 5, or 15, or 25% or some stated, historical range. If unstated, then the seed is open pollinated by bees or whatever in a nursery, not pollinated by hand where the pollen is collected from the named variety pollen donor and applied by hand to the named variety cone parent. In which case you should not pay more than the typical price of open pollinated seed.