Japanese Black Pine from seed after 21 years

[Grant Bowie]

I love this tree grant , one of my favorite black pines

Funnily enough its one of my favorites as well.

Grant

[Scott Roxburgh]

I know you busy Grant but anything to update on this one?

[NBPCA]

I know you busy Grant but anything to update on this one?

Hi Scott,

Yes i tried a different trimming technique on this one this year and so far so good.

When I lived in Sydney I use to be able to use the "needle reduction technique'" which involved cutting off all this years candles on the weakest portion of the tree, then 7 to 10 days later removing all the new candles from the medium vigour area and then finally another 7 to 10 days later remove all the new candles from the strongets portion of the tree. I used to start around 15th November so I could be finished by early December.
I would then get not only buds but elongated and fully formed new growth by say end of January.

But not satisfied with this I would then, in late feb or March, I could then cut back the new growth again to just say 3 or 4 needles on the weaker portions and just 2 needles in the strongest areas. I would then have new buds by winter and set for a new spring growth.

Well we have much shorter summer season in Canberra; with cooler overnight temps well into December, so this series of techniques doesn't work here so I am testing out some new techniques. I am not ready to publish yet but the results look interesting. I sort of combined the two above techniques into one but I will have to wait a season to see the full outcome and expound on it.

Grant.

[Matthew]

Grant just started cutting back hard new growth on some of my pines now. Been my first summer here i have no idea how they will respond but i think i would have another 8-10 weeks of growing season left minumin which should be enough time for them to set buds etc for next year. i have removed excess needles too. like i said its all experimentation moving into a new climate but i will publish the results.

[NBPCA]

It has been standard practice in Canberra to remove the new candles in late December but I think this is wrong and too late if you want new growth this season.

Next year I will start earlier; say mid november; and fertilise even more than I have been known to in the past.

I will let you know.

You will certainly get new buds but not whole new growth I imagine.

grant

[Andrew Legg]

Hi Grant,

I have a few questions. Do you get any branching on the "root formed" section of the trunk? If not, would it accept grafts?

Lovely tree!

Cheers,

Andrew

[Grant Bowie]

Hi Grant,

I have a few questions. Do you get any branching on the "root formed" section of the trunk? If not, would it accept grafts?

Lovely tree!

Cheers,

Andrew

No and don't know in that order.

grant

[Andrew Legg]

Interesting. I thought of trying this technique, but using a mold to style a greater proportion of the full trunk. I guess it is a balance between getting a nice thick base, and doing the design of the top of the tree using more traditional techniques. I suppose you can't go to far up as you would need decent girth to support all the growing sacrifice branches.

[Pat093]

mate this tree just is amazing i think, im not a fan of pines, but if i ever aquired some, this would be my ideal one
have you got any pics from when it was nothing?

[Grant Bowie]

Interesting. I thought of trying this technique, but using a mold to style a greater proportion of the full trunk. I guess it is a balance between getting a nice thick base, and doing the design of the top of the tree using more traditional techniques. I suppose you can't go to far up as you would need decent girth to support all the growing sacrifice branches.

i think you could keep moulding the roots and go higher if you want., however you might get "rings" around the trunk every time you stop and start.

The mould idea was the original idea but not so practical.

Grant

[Grant Bowie]

mate this tree just is amazing i think, im not a fan of pines, but if i ever aquired some, this would be my ideal one
have you got any pics from when it was nothing?

No I never took any early on photos but the thread on "root wrapping' shows the method.

grant

[Grant Bowie]

Hi all,

After one year the pine has filled out a litte and has lots of buds coming after a bit of hybrid trim experiment last year; So far so good.

Japanese black pine 30th October 2010.JPG

October 2011.JPG

IMG_1357 - Copy.JPG

On the close up photo the branchlet on the left has about 4 small buds elongating and one larger one. I will remove the larger one. On the right hand branchlet you can see the needles slightly spread apart and I would expect more buds to emerge there soon. I hope to have this tree displayable at the CBS AABC convention in 2013 in Canberra.

Grant

[Grant Bowie]

Update

July 2012.JPG

[Dario]

Looking very nice indeed Grant!
It will look great for next years convention in Canberra
Cheers, Dario.

[Qitianlong]

That you grew this tree from seed... that is just amazing!