Shopping around for P. parviflora cultivar scion stock

mrcasey Sat Jul 05, 2014 6:02 pm

I was thinking of buying a few Pinus parviflora cultivars to grow out for grafting stock.
The prices on the kiginursery website look to be reasonable.

http://www.kiginursery.com/pinus-parviflora-japanese-white-pine

2 questions:

1. Which cultivars would you find the most appealing for bonsai? Any cultivars you'd absolutely stay away from?

2. Has anyone dealt with Kiginursery? Would you recommend doing business with them?

thanks,
Casey

Leo Schordje Sat Jul 05, 2014 7:01 pm

I have purchased trees from Kigi Nursery, and have been quite happy with the stock they ship. Be fore-warned, the inexpensive 1 year old grafts are exactly what the label says, very young grafts, this means they require special handling because the scion wood may not have fused completely with the understock. If you or your local squirrel or stray cat brush up against the scion wood and flex it, there is the chance it will tear loose and die. I lost a couple cheapies for that reason. Sometimes shipping will be enough to tear the scion wood loose. It is worth the extra dollars to buy 2nd year or 3rd year grafts, these will be more completely fused. Other than this warning, I have been quite happy with my purchases of their stock.

Second warning, they are propagating for landscape use. All the grafted material I received from them, the graft is at least a couple inches above the roots, and would generally be not useful as a bonsai tree itself. With the white pines, perhaps over time the graft will disappear, but with the cork bark JBP they sell, their trees are only useful in the landscape or as a source of scion wood to do your own grafting or air layering.

Those two warnings aside, they are a good company to deal with, I have been quite happy with what I received from them.

You need to read the descriptions carefully to determine if the needle size and color will be useful for the size range of tree you are looking for. I pass on the miniatures, cultivars that grow less than 2 inches per year, because I won't live long enough for them to become "pre-bonsai" much less an acceptable bonsai. They are simply too slow growing.

The dwarfs are all excellent choices. They grow between 2 inches and 6 or so inches per year. This is fast enough to be useful for bonsai. The Japanese cultivars with blue needles are particularly choice.

Some of the standard size cultivars are very nice too, especially if you want a tree larger than shohin. I picked up 'Ibo can' recently, it has long 3 to 4 inch needles that curve & twist. It seems to grow fast, and will make a nice wart-bark JWP in a reasonable amount of time (2 decades from initial grafting). Because of the long needles, it is best for sizes larger than Shohin. Of course you will have to use the Kigi stock as scion wood and graft it low into the nebari of your understock if you want a natural looking trunk with the wart bark effect all the way to the roots.

Yes, order from Kigi - but get 2nd year or older grafted stock. You will be happy.