A few ages of the Japanese black pine

Just sharing.

largest is about 3 to 4 years and being grown for a height of about 30 cms or so. Next pot change is same depth but wider and in simple earthenware, as pots go.

The second is last year's crop.

The smallest is this year's.

Following the Bonsai Today articles, but more and more these pines respond like normal trees, as trimming and budding goes.
Enjoy.
Khaimraj

So, you have your own pines growing. You do have patience, Khaimraj
Do I see some kind of infection on the needles?

Hello Alexandra,

that's the effect of the dry season, low moisture, windy and lots of sun. Doesn't harm them though.

Patience, is for doing things that you don't like to do [ like cleaning the toilet bowl, ]

Do you really find 5 years to be so long ?
Hope you got my e-mail a while back.
Stay Well.
Khaimraj

Why do you grow them in pots rather than the ground?

Hello PeacefulAres,

the growing soil for J.B.P is supposed to be mostly silica based sand in the ground, my ground soil is clay, the growing troughs are filled with freely draining loam and porous clay pots are much more convenient. Plus I have enough years of growing and trees around, so I can just let the pines grow, without any desire to interfere with them.

I am content to simply let many of the trees have a shape [ roots, six main branches ] and just age.

Plus, if you follow the Bonsai Today articles, the pines will grow fairly rapidly, with no real fuss. The adaptation for my side was the non-existent candling phase, and the answer seems to be to just controlling the 1 to 2 cm abundant buds.
Does this explain?
Until,
Khaimraj

Growing them in pond baskets speeds up the process considerably, I grow Larix from seed in pond baskets.

This is one of my trees grown from seed (1994), 15 cm high,


IMG_1479 by Arihato, on Flickr





My Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arihatos_bonsai/sets

Hello Arihato,

welcome to IBC. Thank you for responding. I normally use colanders.
I am not sure pond baskets are available on my side.

Like your larch, impressive!

I am afraid I am not much of a speed or fast grower person. Just relaxed. However, I am sure you can offer PeacefulAres some good points.
Later.
Khaimraj

Khaimraj, can I ask you, how do you deal with dormancy in the West Indies.

As far as 'speed' growing 20 odd years is not that speedy.........

Arihato,

I read and it was explained to me by a Bonsai grower in Germany, that J.B.Pines grow all the way down to the beach in Japan and beaches can reach zone 10 [ minimum of -1 deg.c ]
We go as low as 18 deg.c [ lowest 15 deg.c ]

So there is a good chance J.B.Pines go dormant by length of day and the cold keeps the dormant state going.We go to shorter days and cooler weather and apparently that is enough for the J.B.Pine.
My oldest tree is close to 26 plus years, but I didn't understand the trunk thickening part so the tree is some 41 cm tall, 51 cm wide, with a 3 cm or so trunk.

I don't know if they will live the say x hundred years of the ones in Japan, but hopefully others will take over with my trees later on.

I don't get candles and had to search for information.My brother-in-law, found a group that gave enough information for us to figure out a possible growing technique for the tropics.
Stick around and I will keep sending out results.
Later.
Khaimraj

* There was an older gentleman who grew large J.B.Pines a few years before me, but he lost them because he thought our clay was Akadama and the clay killed the trees.
He never tried a second time.