AusBonsai

Hi all,

This is my first of hopefully many posts here at ausbonsai and am truly excited that such a forum exists! Anyways... i'm after some help identifying what species of pine these two trees are. I collected them from a friends property just off the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and sunshine coast. They are very wide spread in the area and used in large plantations, apparently the main exotic pines in the area are 'Slash' & 'Carribean' pine or a hybrid of the two. I was hoping they would be radiata. I'm really looking forward to working on these two tree's once they establish, it's been a week now and both still look healthy.

Also how and when should i start reducing the needle length?

SOLVED
Slash Pine - By Dayne

Welcome to ausbonsai Dave. The information I have on these pines are that they have large needle length. We really need you to I.D. which they are in order to give advice. Photographs would be helpful to throw this open to the members.


Ash

Cheers mate,

There should be five photo's attached? They seem to be coming up on my end of things. Yes you are right they do have very long needles, similar length to the Casuarina foliage.

Welcome Dave. Others more qualified will i.d these but they look like young ."Sylvestris" to me

hi their all slash pine a cross between moterey (radiata ) and a type of pine from jamacia i think used to grow straight and fast with few branches for less knots pretty much just radiata pines. i did a study on them in geography at school

it kinda look like radiata.
take a close up of the needle.

Hi Dave , Slash Pine 'PINUS ELLIOTII' and Honduras Pine 'PINUS CARIBAEA var HONDURENSIS are both widely grown in QLD . Both trees are self pollinating and cross pollinating .Both trees are predomantly 2 needles when young and 2-3 needles on older growth.

Closest relation to the slash pine is the Loblolly pine 'PINUS TAEDA , however the needles are twice the length as the above pines and usually in clusters of 3-4 and sometimes 5 may appear on older growth .Cheers Alpineart

Thank you everyone who has contributed.

I'm certain that the first pine with the curve is a slash, however as i look at the fairly squat straight pine i'm noticing a distinctively darker foliage colour. I will try to take some more detailed photo's over the weekend.

Does anyone have any tips on how i should reduce the needle sizes once established? I'm quite keen to learn more on this topic as I have a few specimens with rather large leaves, one being a Moreton bay fig which i defoliated twice last season without any luck in leaf reduction. But that is another story and sub-forum.

Just an update guys,

All specimens seem to be surviving It's early days I know, start of the new growing season will be the true test considering how little fibrous rooting i could get out of the HEAVY clay they were living in.

I scrapped a small section of bark off what i thought was old deadwood and was amazed at how much sap was pumped out almost immediately. I'm going to take this as a good sign? Can anyone tell me roughly how long I should leave them before applying some fertilizer? I'm going to treat with sea-sol today.

Thanks,
Dave

*double post*

Hi Dave,
Bonsai is about patience, I have learnt some lessons the hard way. A collected pine needs to recover don't do too much at all.
My rule is to attack a pine once a year maximum. If I repot I do not style, if I prune heavily I do not repot!
Needle reduction comes after you are happy with the styling.