Found this Pine I would like to collect.

Not far from me, there is a factoryground, where there is a nice pine standing. Im going to ask one day soon if I can dig it. Not sure who to ask though.
The real question here is, how long should I wait untill it should be taken up? When is the ideal time to dig a pine? I havent done it many times, and not sure about the time of year. I find it easier to dig trees that shed their leaves, cause you can see at the buds when to dig. Night frosts are more or less gone. We expect snow/rain for a few days soon. Its up at about 12 degrees celcius at days now, in the shade, when theres a bright sun.
And can I plant it in a big wooden box with pure cat litter?
Im planning on focusing most of my of bonsai to pines and oaks in the future.

I see it now, it should be at the questions departement.

Hi Storm. I'm no Pine expert, but Tony and I are going collecting with Pavel in the Czech Republic in early June. Pavel says this is the ideal time to dig Pines. However, we will be over 5000ft up in the mountains, so I assume it will still be early May up there

Hi Storm.
Some thoughts.
Of cours everything depends on the pine in question but
for collecting pine, and in particular in your area i feel, one should really wait till the tree is active.
The pine buds have to expand and to be opened i think maybe even end of may.
(Or the modern way, end of summer when roots start growing.)
A wooden box and catlitter is good but add some pine bark.
Do not remove all soil, special attention is needed not to cut the feeder roots to much, take as much as possible,
later one can prune gradually with every repotting.
Mix in to the catlitter some of the miccorhizzum fungus that is normally between the roots on the finding place
the tree needs it.
Do not cut branches like with a decideous tree when it is not nescesary.
Take care the tree gets no frost after potting.
Mist daily a few times but take care that the soil just remaines humid not wet.
Do realyse that the pine in the third year of repotting really starts of with roots.
So do not start styling in the first years, it has to regain its vigor first.
Reed everything you can on pine.
Ask somebody in your region with experience in pine.
With old pines you do everything slow, take a year or two extra.
Regards, Sunip

@ Sunip,

When a pine is getting active doesn't it mean that reserves are flowing from root/base within the tree and
at this stage it is more fragile ?
As in any tree?
I don't underestimate your knowledge,..questions questions,...and so on....

Grtz,...Machiel from Holland where whether is as you know,....at the moment dry!

There are two windows for collecting Pines. In the Spring (now) as the buds wake and after the candles have opened, needles have extended fully and hardened off (Sept, Oct).

will baddeley wrote:There are two windows for collecting Pines. In the Spring (now) as the buds wake and after the candles have opened, needles have extended fully and hardened off (Sept, Oct).

Listen to Will. Won't you?

When a pine is getting active doesn't it mean that reserves are flowing from root/base within the tree and
at this stage it is more fragile ?
As in any tree?
[quote="littleart-fx"]

Hi all,
I feel a tree taken out of the ground is always fragile,
but at the time when it is getting active it is able to recover better.
regards, Sunip

Trust Will.
Here in the UK I have normally collected pines at the times he has indicated although I favour early spring, but not when the birds are nesting in case it disturbs them.

Why are you planting in cat litter when there are much better alternatives?
Use fine pine bark mixed with grit and some other vegetative mix which is well draining, in the UK we had a product 'Kyodama' (not Japanese) which was a form of fly ash which I also used to good effect. It was not produced for a short time but I understand it is being marketed if not now soon.

When you dig it keep as much of the root-ball as possible, plant it in your mix in a large box or polystyrene container, then look after it.

Hi Storm.
You got already a lot of good advise.
I believe you are in the 6 or 7 climate zone?
Are you in the heigher regions of the Telemark?
regards, Sunip

Thank you all for great advice. I really appriciate it.
At this point I have to figure out who owns the land.
I plant it in pure cat litter, cause its well drained, all my other trees are planted in it. Many of them grow like crazy, and I can get my hands on it.
I pay about 30 nok kr thats about 4 USD for 8 litres per bag. It dries out quite fast, and I know there isnt a problem of root rot, which actually is my biggest concern.
I have no idea about zones, im in the lower region.
And my plan is to collect it this spring. Got materials for a box, but there is still a chance for nightfrosts.

Hi Storm!
I'm no expert whatsoever but i live on the swedish westcoast and have similar growing conditions.
This is good time for digging. Please dont disturb the roots, make sure to keep the rootball and the soil together in a plastic bag.
I have no idea why, but I've had no success at all with wooden boxes. The only successful yamadori pines I have were planted in large plastic buckets. I keep all of the old soil around the rootball, put it in bucket and fill up with cat litter. This way the tree sits steady in the pot almost with almost no need of wire anchoring, but use it anyway you know the storms we get every autumn! Keep the tree in a bright but shady spot, and keep moist. I give a little feeding at the end of summer.

I've been collecting since 2004 and tried several methods including washing away all the old soil. done this and that but it finally seems to work for me.

Cheers

So, today and my beloved was outside to collect this pine. We got up at the top of the mountain and saw it was impossible to get down to the tree without ropes. So we borrowed some climbing gear, and got to it.
After buying the land owner a bottle of wine, and getting written permission, we started to dig the tree. Seemed like a easy task.
It wasnt. We were there for many hours, trying to cut over the roots. I got to cut over all but one big one. One was about 20cm long, and 10cm wide, going straight down into the mountain.
I didnt get to take the tree up. Most roots were very thick and long, and very little feeder roots.
When I saw that it was the last root, and after removing a big rock, that the roots had covered I realised it had too little roots. So I stopped cutting, and wrapped a black plastic bag around the roots, and filled with soil from the place and watered. Hoping for some new growth. I just hope it gets enough nutrition from the last big root it had. Im thinking of going back and take it up later this year maybe. And I think I have to use some powertools to get it out. Its terribly irritating.. Its the best yamadori ive seen myself. Thick trunk, old and flaky. Its not more than a metre, and maybe a half. Dense growth and a good nebari.

Storm wrote:Its terribly irritating.. Its the best yamadori ive seen myself. Thick trunk, old and flaky. Its not more than a metre, and maybe a half. Dense growth and a good nebari.

ha haha, now that's yamadori for you You can find the best tree you've ever seen but if you can't move it.. well, that's all she wrote. It's difficult to make a judgement based on the information you gave, but it seems like maybe it's better to leave the tree as it is. I'd rather do that than watch a tree die in my garden.

All the best and good luck with yamadori in the future, I'd imagine Norway is abundant with great pine bonsai material anyway?

Hi Storm.
A lot work and a valuable experience.
No matter how beautiful they are, normally such trees are left in place to be admired.
Because when the roots are that deep in to the stone, there is not much survival chance.
When there is any recovery it will be not this year.
A good practice is to prepare difficult trees one or two years earlier and inspect the site if collecting is possible.
Norway has a lot of interesting pine, ( it is 40 years ago i was there for the last time)
look for trees that grow in shallow dips in the stone, mostly they are easy to lift.
Or the pines that are in some soil.
regards, Sunip

Storm wrote:I got to cut over all but one big one. One was about 20cm long, and 10cm wide, going straight down into the mountain.
I didnt get to take the tree up. Most roots were very thick and long, and very little feeder roots.
[...]Im thinking of going back and take it up later this year maybe.

Hi Storm.

Your'e lucky to be very young. If you madly insist on digging this tree, I suspect grafting roots is the only reliable way...It will cost you blod, sweat and possibly tears as well, climbing the mountain now and then, but you might pull it off in about 2-4 years - and if you do pull it off, fame and thumps up will be yours, besides enjoying the tree. (BTW: I don't think anyone has ever made progress pictures on site...)

regards from loke emil

The thing with this tree was that I was pretty sure it had enough roots. There was a mound on top of the mountain that I hoped to more or less just lift off. Silly me though, trees this old would ofcourse have roots that go far. I will get this tree up. One day!
Ill take pictures of it, so you can see how it goes. I would love to graft some roots, but I havent done it on any tree before and I bet pines are far from the easiest to do this on. I dont have many trees, and atleast not natives. I havent found enough worth digging either, so I havent had the chance to test things out. But still, the positive thing is that Im still so new to this, and I have many years to find those gold specimens.
At the start, I thought it was insane that yamadori was that expensive, hey, trees grow everywhere.
Now I know better.

Storm wrote:At the start, I thought it was insane that yamadori was that expensive, hey, trees grow everywhere.
Now I know better.

Well, personally I think yamadori is about collecting and caring for the particular tree...I too find it a bit rediculous that any one would collect a tree with the intention of selling/buying it at the highest bid. Maby I'm old fashioned, but to me yamadori is about knowledge and a spiritual journey. Passing on a specimen yamadori from one person to another is a very fine gesture...a recognition of the other person and his/hers ability to take proper care of the tree, rather than a mere money transfer. OK. I'm already on a ramble here, sorry.

About your pine: If you are up to it and have relative easy access to the tree, grafting roots can be done, with proper care taken. But in your case it is probably madness, because of the climbing and other extreme conditions - the main root on this pine is going in to the mountain for a reason: if you can find a way to understand/analyse the trees needs under these natural conditions, you might succeed. In the meantime you might want to practise grafting/root grafting on nursery stock pines...why not

/Loke Emil

"Well, personally I think yamadori is about collecting and caring for the particular tree...I too find it a bit rediculous that any one would collect a tree with the intention of selling/buying it at the highest bid. Maby I'm old fashioned, but to me yamadori is about knowledge and a spiritual journey. Passing on a specimen yamadori from one person to another is a very fine gesture...a recognition of the other person and his/hers ability to take proper care of the tree, rather than a mere money transfer."

I couldn't agree more. I wont sell the tree, and Im not gonna buy expensive yamadori either. I want to find and work on them myself, but I do understand why the pricetags are just as they are. It takes time and knowledge to find good trees. It takes a long time and several years before you can actually sell them too, since they have to be established. Bonsai is one of the last hobbies/passions that one should do for money. But there are also some people who dont have the possibility to get this kind of pines. So Im lucky in that way.
I wont try to graft it in the near future. Ill see later how the new roots are doing. If they keep doing well, ill saw off the big root. If not, I hope it will survive on its own with some time.

believe it or not i've had good luck layering pines. if it survives remove some of the flaky bark and cut a plastic pot from top to bottom and make a hole in it. fill it w soil and let is be for a year or two if possible. if not you can cut major root and dig a bit of a hole around where you severed it and fill it with kitty litter and some rooting hormone. do this over a few years and you can remove it with very nice feeder roots. send us a picture or two!