AusBonsai

While on a visit to Adelaide in the winter of 2018 I collected some Aleppo pine cones. Two years later they had finally opened and yielded their seed.I sowed them and was rewarded with a good percentage of germinating seeds. The seedlings are now just over half a year old. Then, last week I was fortunate enough to win the monthly raffle at our Bonsai Club, the prize being a large pot, 56 x 44 x 7 cm. I know it's a bit tragic, but I just had to fill it with something . As I had so many Aleppo pine seedlings, why not make a pine forest. I know I should probably have grown the seedlings a bit larger before planting them, but..... Mark, I know you'll appreciate my line of thinking .
So I constructed what I thought would resemble a fairly arid, rocky Mediterranean Landscape.
For those who like a progression, I hope this is the start of an ongoing one. Any suggestions on improving this setting, e.g. does it need more trees? would be appreciated. It currently contains 19 trees.

Nice saplings, they seem to strike really well from seed. My friend did exact the same thing, and gave me a few to bonsai . I've hadvthem for about 4 years. I really like them and I would be keen to see a forrest planting of them. Best of luck. I'll add a pic of mine as reference.

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Really like the forest idea, only recently started with this style myself too ... I have no experience but feel it's a little confused. The rocks look great, trees do to. I like the offset triangular shape, though not sure where to look.

What's the focus? Is it the rocky "mountains", the trees? Feel they're competing at the moment.

Maybe next repotting, move the tree in the front, left of center, to the left more, exposing more rock?

That really tall tree is a bit high for me, maybe trim it back so it's just taller than the one to it's right?

The top view was cool too, reminiscent of a drone shot.

Keen to see this develop!

- Daniel

P.S congrats on the great pot too!!!

These plantings with rocks and immature seedlings are called saikei - literally 'tray landscape' The Chinese growers have been doing this for a long time but Japanese growers adopted the idea more recently as a way to make good use of small, immature plants while they grow a bit. The idea is for the rocks and landscape to give more interest before the trees get to the impressive stage. Saikei gives us the chance to make something attractive from stock that would otherwise be not worth looking at.
In a smaller pot the trees will only grow slowly but with regular pruning they will slowly develop and eventually may reach the stage where they can be separated out and become true bonsai in their own right.

Enjoy the pine forest landscape while the trees grow and develop.

You’re spot on Frank, I do like this line of thinking and your landscape. The more I spend time with Bonsai, the more I think this is both a visually engaging way of growing seedlings and a better way to grow a group or forest - in that you end up trimming your trees in the context of the group.

I know this runs counter to the idea of growing single plants and thickening the trunks and then developing the branching/ramification but what you lose in speed and size you gain in finesse and synchronicity with the whole planting.

I look forward to watching this progression.


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Looks like a lot of fun R.B. My only suggestion would be to get some wire on them , at this stage you could get some killer movement. I know its early but you could set them up for the future . Cheers John.

Thanks all for your comments so far, all taken on board for future consideration.
A couple of points in reply.
Legoman, at this point they are only just over 6 month old seedlings, and I planted them more or less at random with the Idea of adjusting the growth as they get larger. There are a few weak trees in amongst them, so I expect some losses there. If that happens I have more trees to take their place. Once they grow a bit larger the trees will be the focus. I'll have to be patient and make adjustments as the project grows.
Boom64, the trees are still tiny, too small to wire. In addition I want to see how they will grow by themselves planted so close together. There are a couple of groups of twos and threes that hopefully will look like multi trunk trees if they survive and a couple already have movement in the lower trunk that occurred naturally. One of those is on the right hand side of the picture, and it's been planted so it looks like it is growing out from under the rock. As the trees thicken they will hopefully look like some of them are growing out of the rocky clefts.
Cheers, Frank.