Styling a pine - parts 1 and 2

I have many small trees grown over a number of years which have never been particularly styled. Does anyone have any ideas for styling this pine. It is 19" high and 23" wide, and about 8 years old and grown from a seed.
Many thanks
Sheila

I think that hook at the top has no chance in the final design unless you are in the master class of using levers and cranks and want to risk major surgery to put massive amounts of movement into the lower trunk as well. So I would recommend cutting past the bend and waiting a while for inspiration for further styling. I like to leave extra long branch stubs so that I can pretend that the tree will divert the sap flow to other parts of the tree.
What type of pine is it? It looks healthy and has a nice trunk, although the newst growth doesn't have a deep green that I was expecting. Could it perhaps use more fertilizer and/or more sun?

David

I'm pretty certain that is not a pine. It appears to be a spruce, maybe?

I'm going to disagree with David and say that the hook is going to be one of the most important features of the tree. Since it is relatively tall ans skinny and lacking in taper, this would seem to be a candidate for a bunjin/literati form. You could remove all the branches from below the hook, and style a few small pads of foliage from the branches after the hook, leaving you with a nice little bunjin tree.

- bob

Thank you Bob and David for your replies. Although I've grown 'little trees' for a long time I'm not clued up at all with bonsai terms, so will have to look more into this area. The tree was given to me as a very tiny seedling by one of the children at school. He'd brought some seeds back from holiday and grown them. He gave it to me when it was about 3" high and said it was a pine tree and asked me to look after it and that is all I know about it. I have other pine trees and they do look different to this, so maybe it is a spruce. It put quite a lot of young growth on in spring, which looked rather leggy, so I cut it back quite a bit. It stays out all year round in quite a shady part of my garden. I think the pot is probably too big (used to have cactus in it) and I maybe need to look for a more stylish one.
Thanks again. I will certainly look at your ideas.
Sheila

Sheila. If you google "hemlock tree" i think you'll find what you are looking for. Good luck.

Many thanks Rick. I will look at that now
Sheila

Checked Hemlock Tree (I've actually never heard of it I have to admit) and my tree certainly does fit the description. I'm going to check it with the RHS too.
Amazing what you learn each day!
Thanks, Sheila

Definitely not a hemlock. Spruce or fir.

Thankyou Curtis. Whatever it is, I will continue to look after it and hopefully give it a good design to live with. The needles are very soft and floppy, maybe because it's still reasonably young. I will keep my watchful eye on it.
Regards
Sheila

Sure looks like a larch to me.

I'm thinking a cedar probably deodar. Do you know where the seed came from?

Hi Sheila,
I believe your tree could be Douglas Fir (pseudotsuga menziesii) not a native tree for England..... but the Brits have been growing them in their forestry programs for decades now, the orginal sources for the seed being BC Canada. The other species that it could be is a spruce perhaps Sitka Spruce but looking at the photo I'll pretty sure its D. Fir.
here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudotsuga_menziesii
Cheers Graham

Oh dear! Sheila - now you definitely need the RHS.!!

If that cone came from the tree then it's not a cedar.

Definitely Douglas Fir.

So just to clarify: it's either a pine, spruce, fir, hemlock, larch, or cedar. Maybe some close-up photos of the foliage and branches would help.

Chris

Yea, that is definitely not a larch. Why do you people chime in when they really have no clue. Not that Im judging but when it comes to newbies figuring things out, it just causes confusion. I myself lean more towards a fir. Probably Douglas fir.

It's a Douglas fir. Trust me.

Sheila - if you can't get to the RHS to resolve this, you could look at www.british-trees.com/treeguide. It may help, but not necessarily!
p.s. Never trust a man who says "trust me". Nothing personal.

GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND. https://www.google.ca/search?q=douglas+fir&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=bDItUK-CAuj2iwLBsIGoCQ&biw=1376&bih=665&sei=bjItUNEWkOiLArqtgJAO#um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=douglas+fir+foliage&oq=douglas+fir+foliage&gs_l=img.3...118250.121170.0.121381.8.8.0.0.0.0.172.808.6j2.8.0...0.0...1c.DZ6uaVVCLdw&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=b687778a45fdd795&biw=1376&bih=665

Help - what on earth is my tree going to end up as!
In answer to the question of where it came from - it was grown from a seed which a child at my old school brought back from holiday (probably Spain or similar place), and it was about 3" high when he gave it to me to look after. Hence I don't know any real history of it, except that the child called it a pine.
Thanks everyone for joining in the saga of my 'little tree'.

Close up of 'the tree'. Bob asked if the cone shown in the main picture came from the tree. No, it didn't. That cone came from my real pine tree before it was felled!

With apologies and respect to Curtis and plant_dr and gman , I'm inclined to agree with them - I'll join the Douglas Fir group.
(In true British form, however, it is also a Tsuga relative! Well, pseudo relative)

Picture of my tree has been emailed to RHS!!! I wonder how much they know about trees? At the outset I just wanted to know if anyone had any good ideas for styling it and it's now expanded into quite a saga. Whatever it turns out to be I shall always know it as the 'Beechwood Tree'. (Beechwood being the name of my old school where it came from.) I will post the RHS answer if and when I get it.
Cheers all

Quote: If you want to be happy all of your life grow a bonsai

Well one thing is for sure, its not a pine and its not a larch(unless it loses its needles in the winter, which I doubt is the case). Its not a hemlock, hemlock have shorter, fatter and flatter foliage. And yes Douglas fir is a tsuga but does not have the same needles.