JWP "Glauca"

[missybonsai]

Hey there!
So been reading the Master's Series book on Pines lately, and consequently bought a White Pine yesterday. Its the cultivar "glauca" which has more of a blue-green colour to its needles than other cultivars. This tree was selected from about 30-40 others, as its branches were closest to the ground, foliage closest to the trunk, and the graft union the most acceptable. I already have a black pine that I'm currently working on also. It will be great to work on the two trees and see the differences between the species I'm still wrapping my head around the techniques, but I'm sure experience will help!
Heres the white pine as bought (I chopped off the branches before remembering to take a picture, hence the hands holding them):


Here's the tree after the two long branches were removed (I also thinned the tree out a tiny bit, removing any branches that meant there were more than two branches per junction - I'm not sure how to word this, the words just won't come )


And here's the graft union, the little stub was removed after this photo was taken (it was dead wood anyway)


I hope you like it, and any comments etc are more than welcome!

[lackhand]

Hi Missy, looks like a very healthy tree! I'm just starting my pine journey too, but thought I would mention that I have found Ryan Neil's pine lectures to be very helpful. You can find them on YouTube, or there is a link in the wiki too, along with some notes I put in there. I made them mainly for my own use, but figured hopefully they would be helpful to others as well.

https://www.ausbonsai.com.au/wiki/index. ... es_on_Pine

I have only done notes for white pine so far, but some day I'll get around to black pine as well. The first video is black pine, second is white.

[MoGanic]

Hi Missy,

Good little tree there! How big do you want this one to get? Im assuming your pretty much happy with the size? I ask because the long sacrifice you removed means slower fattening.

Cheers,
Mo

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi there,

I like your white pine. It looks to be in good form already.

It tolerates wiring fairly well. It responds well to correct trimming.

The only thing it does not like: the heat. Its level of tolerance is no where as good as black pines.

I found that down here in Victoria, any day over 28 degrees centigrade, I will have look out for it. This Summer just passed was hotter than the last one, this one of mine viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3224 still has brown needles on it. But I think it will do okay this coming Spring.

Cheers and please keep us posted.

[missybonsai]

Hi Missy, looks like a very healthy tree! I'm just starting my pine journey too, but thought I would mention that I have found Ryan Neil's pine lectures to be very helpful. You can find them on YouTube, or there is a link in the wiki too, along with some notes I put in there. I made them mainly for my own use, but figured hopefully they would be helpful to others as well.

https://www.ausbonsai.com.au/wiki/index. ... es_on_Pine

I have only done notes for white pine so far, but some day I'll get around to black pine as well. The first video is black pine, second is white.

th

Thanks heaps for the link Karl, I shall look at that when I have more time, I don't want rush it! Just a general question though, when using candle/shoot pinching and needle plucking techniques, is this usually just done for maintenance of a "complete" tree, or are they used when a tree is in development?

Hi Missy,

Good little tree there! How big do you want this one to get? Im assuming your pretty much happy with the size? I ask because the long sacrifice you removed means slower fattening.

Cheers,
Mo

Hi Mo, I may try and thicken this one up later. Yes I know that will slow thickening, I'm just paranoid about a sacrifice stealing too much energy from the branches I want to keep. This kind of ties in with my other question, can you carry out the pinching etc to keep the energy balanced while growing a sacrifice? Also the sacrifice may have created inverse taper if it was allowed to keep developing, as it sprouted from a part of the tree that has many branches that I will chop later. I may use one of the un-needed lowest branches to thicken the white pine section of the graft union at a later date.

Hi there,

I like your white pine. It looks to be in good form already.

It tolerates wiring fairly well. It responds well to correct trimming.

The only thing it does not like: the heat. Its level of tolerance is no where as good as black pines.

I found that down here in Victoria, any day over 28 degrees centigrade, I will have look out for it. This Summer just passed was hotter than the last one, this one of mine viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3224 still has brown needles on it. But I think it will do okay this coming Spring.

Cheers and please keep us posted.

Thanks Daiviet, I will definitely have to watch it here then! We get very hot summers here. what do you suggest for its protection during hot weather?

Thanks for the encouragement!

[lackhand]

For white pines Ryan says you pluck to maintain the silhouette of a developed tree. If you are trying to develop foliage and back buds on a white pine, then let needles grow until they harden off and then cut back to a few needles on the new growth. Just to be clear, I'm just going by what he says as I have basically no experience worth speaking of with white pines yet. I'll tell you if it works like he says in a couple of years.

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi Missy,

...
Thanks Daiviet, I will definitely have to watch it here then! We get very hot summers here. what do you suggest for its protection during hot weather?

Thanks for the encouragement!

Protection -- I will be very mindful of reflective heat. That is heat that coming off walls behind trees. But I think generally the dryness of our weather is a problem for white pines. I have a little corner in my yard, where at the peak of hot days, it still feel not too dry, that is where I like to place my white pine. (I hope that makes sense.)

From real life examples. On several occasions, my little trident maples get their leaves burnt off in a single hot day. Each leaves burnt about 50%, and yet they survived.

And this black pine: viewtopic.php?f=104&t=493 -- it is very healthy this year. No shape tho.

I had three white pines died due to heat exhaustion. I could not even tell that they had problems from the colour of their foliage at the of the days (that killed them) -- till about two days later.

Please understand that I am not trying to be negative. I like them a lot. But I had several heart-breaks with them, I am just being objective about my observations.

I forgot to mention that your tree has a beautiful graft too.

Regards.

[missybonsai]

Thanks Karl, maybe I should watch this video before I ask more questions! Thank for your advise, its much appreciated!
Edit: Just watched the white pine vid, WOW! thanks Karl, that is so helpful!! Will definitely have to watch for black pines too

Thanks Daiviet, I will try and keep it away from direct sun and reflected heat during hot days. Maybe keeping it in a humid spot will help with the dryness. I understand totally, I'm not put off by what your saying, thanks so much for the heads up!

More questions will inevitably come!

[missybonsai]

Another update on this little pine. Had a poke around the soil today, to discover that the trunk actually extended another approx. 8cm below the soil line. So, trying not to disturb the roots too much, I lifted it until the trunk was exposed. Totally changes the look of the tree! Also took off some more of the leggy growth that I won't be needing. I think the pic really exaggerates the inverse taper, because I'm sure it did not look that bad in reality. I think it has something to do with the dark part of the trunk merging with the light part (don't they say that black is slimming? ) Anyway, here's a pic:

[MoGanic]

As long as trimming of foliage is kept in check and roots are promoted to grow radially, inverse taper should slowly become good taper. The roots growing radially assist by pulling each side around the trunk out giving a small amount of basal flare. Having said that, once the bark dries Im sure itll be much less obvious!!

I can see a wonderful tree out of this in the future . Also thanks for the update!!

[missybonsai]

Thanks for the encouragement Mo! I actually thought that inverse taper couldn't be fixed "naturally", so that's great news! Do you have any vision of where you would like this tree to go? I'm not imaginative in the least, so I very rarely come up an image in my mind of what a tree will eventually look like on my own. That's a big part of why I post my trees on here, so people can show me their ideas. So any ideas for the future of this tree anyone?