Pinus parifolia/ Japanese White Pine progression

Hello

Here is my White Pine (P. parifolia; Goyomatsu) after almost 2 years of development. It was a gift from my uncle, who was unable to take care of it due to time constraints. I received the tree in May 2008. It was potted in a poor, sandy soil. At the time I removed about a third of the rootball and repotted with some free-draining medium.



I have been pinching candles in spring and pulling needles in autumn, here you can see the difference in the density from the last needling:



I repotted it a couple of weeks ago. I washed the roots to get apart most of the rootball (I saved some of the old medium and scattered it about the roots when I replanted). No roots were cut, I just spaced them out and got them in some decent medium (sophisticat pink with 25% cmposted pine bark).





What do you think? TimR's been helping me on this one. I'm developing it VERY slowly, it's +70 years old at least. It's about 85 cm high, base 12cm at widest point.

Cheers

Richard

Looks like a great job. One possible improvement. Is it secured to the grow box? No matter how snug the roots are in the box, it pays to have the tree all wired down to the box for a few months. I've lost a couple of transplants, when they've unexpectedly blown over and dried out.

Hello Kev and thanks for your reply

No, it's not secured, I did think of wiring it in, however it's incredibly heavy and it shouldn't blow out of the pot. I usually wire trees in after I've done some root work. It's in a sheltered spot so it should be fine.

I neglected to mention my fertilising regime! Right now, I'm giving it blood, fish and bone meal every other week (I scatter some on the surface, about half the recommended dose). I also have a stocking of sheep poo in a 20 litre bucket of water, I dilute that with 1/2 rain water and water the tree with it once every three days or so, weather permitting.

When the needles harden off in late june/early july, I will suppliment with a higher nitrogen feed (1/2 dose every other week), with the occasional dose of ericeous plant food. I give bone meal (for phosphate) in the autumn.

What do you reckon?

cheers

Richard

Nice nebari and nice movement so far as I can see.
Be careful and take your time.

Greetings,
Cees.

Your appraoch is very similar to mine. However, given recent unpredictable gusty weather, I'd still strongly recommend that you wire it to the box!

Good luck, its a very nice piece of material to work on.

I agree with Kev. Its beter to be safe then sorry. my first winter doing bonsai i lost a few trees due to wind.

I now wire all my trees no matter what into there pots, And i also wire the pots down to the benches.

Use the corner posts. Four screws in the top of the posts. Fix a wire to a screw, take the wire around the trunk once and fix it to the screw on the diagonal. The same on the other two. In plan, like the Scotish flag. Any slack can be taken up with a twist of the pliers. It would be a shame to lose such an old tree to the wind.