Suggestions for Scots Pine and Turkey Oak needed

Have been given two trees which were taken from the wild some time ago on our nearby marshes and am wondering what to do with them now, any suggestions welcome can anyone see the potential if any there?
The Scots Pine is about five feet high with a trunk about 2inches wide at the base.Lots of healthy top growth


The Oak is about four foot high

I don't see much bonsai potential in the pine, but Scots pines tend to bud back on old wood so you might try cutting it off above the second branch whorl and see what happens.

The oak has a lot more potential since it has some low branches. I am thinking it could be styled into a spreading (not quite broom) style using the lower branches. Might be able to use the tall leader to thicken the trunk a bit more by stripping off the middle branches and letting the top run while you start to style to the lower branches.

Thank you Marty I was hoping that perhaps something like this crude computer image might be possible though to what extent the branch lengths can be viable I don,t know

I am not sure I agree with your style choice for the Pine but I do agree it should be cut back and I agree it should be cut back to the second set of branches. Let it grow from that point for a year before making any additional choices. Give that new lower growth a chance to gain strength and set dominance before you continue to work the tree down line.

Thank you Vance, may I ask what style suggestions you might have? They would be very gratefully received.

Michael, that wil make a very nice literati. Ask John next time, you will be surprised. I had like that and the transformation is good.
Geoff

Michael Cooper wrote:Thank you Vance, may I ask what style suggestions you might have? They would be very gratefully received.

Give the tree time to grow out a bit.  Give the tree a chance to back bud and produce new branches.  Once this starts to happen take a good long look at what nature is giving you.  Too soon people are looking at a piece of material with the idea in mind that I am going to do this or I might do that.  Wait the year or two to let the tree develop and see what it says to you.  

I always start with the trunk and let my imagination work its way up the trunk contemplating the branches to see what the total seems to be saying.  I don't go any further than that.  I develop a lot of Scots Pines by cutting them back hard and developing what grows up afterwards.  This is what I do for my sale trees.  Basically what you are doing is altering a useless piece of raw material with all of its faults, cutting it back hard to eliminate the foibles common in young trees and waiting for the response.  

This is what happens in nature when a young tree encounters a lightning strike, an avalanche,  a wind storm, or many many years of the same over and over.  If, over the years and the tree survives the tree's history will be written on its face and etched in its bones.  By cutting the tree back you have put the tree into that mode of having to grow around it's programing to reach for the sun and put on all kinds of growth that hog the daylight.  Tree will always be better if it is expressing its own future and not being forced into some sort of predetermined pigeon hole gleaned from a book.

At some point you will look at the tree and see something. I don't know what that something might be but if you are growing and the tree is growing you will reach an intersection of ideas. You will start seeing the possibilities.

Thank you Vance and Geoff, I follow your reasoning Vance. I know young bonsai enthusiasts get impatient because of their youth but there are also us oldie enthusiasts who get impatient because of our age. Thank you for your thoughts on the matter.

Vance is right: I had the same idea, I think the only way to try and make it something is to cut it back drastically, maybe leaving one, two, or three branches.

And Geoff too, about the oak. I heard the president of a local bonsai club (not mine) yesterday and he said that you can use "Bordeaux mix" every two weeks before it backbuds, and according to him, the trees fight powdery mildew more efficiently. For what it's worth: I've never had any success with our local oaks, I gave up partly because of that white fungus that I couldn't get rid of. Probably depends on the local environment and the genetics of the plant...

I don't know about Turkey oak. Is it "Quercus cerris", also referred to as "Austrian oak"?

(Found this interesting link about hybrids:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_cerris#Hybrids)

Or is it "Quercus laevis"?

I don't know either species and the leaves look quite similar from here - 1,000 miles away, but I've got my glasses on!

Michael Cooper wrote:Thank you Vance and Geoff, I follow your reasoning Vance. I know young bonsai enthusiasts get impatient because of their youth but there are also us oldie enthusiasts who get impatient because of our age. Thank you for your thoughts on the matter.

This is what I do to this day and I am 71.  With Scots Pines it does not take that long, actually shorter amount of time if you try to force a tree like you have from the very beginning  into something "dumb" to use a word.

I have never had success with any Oak.

Vance Wood wrote:
I have never had success with any Oak.

Oh my!

Actually, we do agree on a lot of things, bro'.

Yes, I was only referring to the Scots. I will take a picture for you Michael, and have it at the next meeting. I am not so sure about the Oak, I think it needs some time in the ground to thicken the trunk. Or take it right down and have a small tree,
Geoff.

Oh dear, oh dear, just recalled the forester member of our club telling me how to make sure if a pine is a Scots. Tear a needle across and it should show as fibrous, which this does not. Must remember to pay more attention to our club arborist in future.
Saw him on club night and asked what my gifted tree is then, he says it is probably a Corsican Pine Pinus nigra (maritima) used a lot in commercial forestry, good for the building industry and plywood but not much cop for bonsai, the needles are excessively long.

As to the Oak I have cut that down above the lower few branches and taken up a new leader and will now sit back for twenty years or so and see what happens. On second thoughts an actuary  might suggest that I lavish attention on it for a few years instead and hope to see some improvement whilst I have the chance. Actually the nebabri looks promising, he said trying to salvage something from his two freebies.

I have a Pinus nigra (Austrian Black Pine) in development and the needles are about 2" (5 cm) long. I recall seeing an article that the can be reduced to about 1" (2.5 cm). I have gotten some good back budding by reducing the number of needles, pinching back the candles, and even candle cutting. I recall that the article indicated that they could be treated like P. thunbergiana (Japanese Black Pine) in alternate years with a less aggressive approach between to let the tree regain strength. Summary of my experience, stronger than Scots Pine from a cut back/debudding standpoint, but less apt to back bud on old wood.

Thanks Marty , a ray of hope so I shall persevere with it.

Very little info on "Pinus nigra maritima" on google: it's actually a non-official synonym for "Pinus nigra var. corsicana", in French and italian (Pin) laricio.

It's not as popular as other species of pine, but in the south of Europe, you can find some very nice ones trained as bonsai (search for "laricio bonsai").

Hi Mike

Here's my similar turkey oak.  Can you see what I did from this pic?

20170607_202321 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr



Here's the reveal:

20170607_202332 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr


It spent 2 years strapped to this brace:

20170330_110853 by BrendanR2012, on Flickr

Cheers Brendan ,this is what mine was looking like a few weeks ago quite a lot more large leaves now.Your is really going to be something else.