Field grown nursery scots 7 years later - need thoughts on health

[Jaberwky17]

I put a 3 year old little nursery scots in the ground at my old house 7 years ago (so yes that means it's 10 years old). My kids nicked it a few times with the lawnmower so it has a barkless scar at its base. We moved 5 years ago in October and I transplanted it ground-to-ground to the current house, did some upper pruning, branch wiring, and trunk bending the following year. Late last summer I drove a long spade into the ground in a circle about the diameter of the tree's dripline to help ease collection this spring. About 6 weeks ago I was able to collect and place into a temporary grow box. I removed about 1/4 of the organic soil that came out with it. It has dropped most of its winter color and gained plenty of green, with relatively mild temps here (50-70 day temps). It gets twice a day misting and I'm being careful not to overwater. When pulling some of the grass that came along with the root ball, the grass roots pulled up some pine roots and they are very nicely colored white and clearly healthy (I tucked back into the soil).

So, after several weeks, color returning, candles extending vigorously, I am nervously thinking it's gonna be OK. It's my first collected ground grown tree and by far the longest I've nurtured "raw" product. My reason for posting it to get input on the health. I didn't take very good photos to be able to see the style, but I anticipate after a couple of years that the entire top will come off, leaving only the lower branches that were wired years ago. Thoughts?

Images are:
1) initial ground planting 7 years ago
2) current collected in 18x18x16 grow box
3) current collected
4) current candles

2)

 

[Paradox]

If youre just asking about health? It looks healthy to me.

You might want to go over the tree and reduce any place where it has 3 extending candles to 2 max, particularly at the top of the tree where most of the energy is.
If you plan on cutting the top some day, you want to direct some of that strength lower. Reducing the candles as suggested is one way to do that.

As you stated, its hard to see the structure of the tree as is so I cant really comment further.

You stated you just put it in the box this year?
If so then it seems to be recovering nicely but I wouldnt do any more major work to it this year.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

If those candles keep extending and the older foliage stays in place, you'll be in the clear for the year.
It looks healthy: I see multiple candles per branch tip, so that's a good sign!

 

[PiñonJ]

If candles are growing, it should be fine. Since you just dug it, I would leave all of the new growth alone. If it’s super vigorous this year, you could shoot select in the fall. Otherwise, wait until next year. Letting it grow will stimulate back budding.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Looks good to go/healthy. Suggestion to reduce candles to 2 per branch especially up top is good idea. Better yet might be after harden off to thin upper branches overshadowing/using energy of lower tree. Why wait for harden off? All growth, traffic through branches/trunk adds wood(size)to trunk.