Loblolly Pine

[Aaron S.]

Hello everyone, new to the forums here but so far it looks like the place to be. I'm really just getting started in bonsai. I have always been interested but I have never really jumped in as I was busy gardening and landscaping. Then I developed a pretty nasty health issue and I was forced to quit working. Since I could no longer do any full scale gardening, I got into bonsai to satisfy my green thumb. Last summer I ordered a bunch of tree seeds and along with seeds I collected in the wild I started my bonsai collection. So my "bonsai" collection is pretty much one year old seedlings. I did start a bunch of loblolly pines, which grow all over S.E. Oklahoma where I grew up at. So I have plans on doing a forest planting of loblolly pines in the style of the Kiamichi Mountains. I was just wondering if anyone else has any experience growing loblolly pines as bonsai trees.

 

[GGB]

I got super excited about loblolly pines. I love natives and especially flood tolerant ones. But was somewhat disheartened by more experienced artists. It seems that needle reduction is really tricky and possibly fatal long term. I was told this, not my experience. I had a bunch of one year old seedlings I was super excited about and I have seed. after hearing about needle length problems I tossed most of what I had but kept one as a landscape tree and two as projects. They are super fun, maybe trying to shape them into very large literati style trees. They grow like weeds. Back bud well. Sort of regret tossing out as many as I did, all had really great starts to nebari. I guess I have dramatic reactions but wasn't trying to care for 6 trees for 20 years before I discovered ramification was impossible

 

[Aaron S.]

I'm not expecting them to turn out to be real nice trees, they are more for my personal enjoyment. I would like to have a large one at about 3-4 feet high. Right now the tallest is about 2-3 inches high so it will be a little bit. I also started some Japanese Black Pine from seed a year ago. At one time I had about 30 seedlings and only 2 have survived to this day and they are only an inch tall. I'm not sure if it is me or the JBP just grows very slow.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

@garywood has been working with Loblolly and has mentioned some positive results, but it’s been a few years since we discussed them. If I recall, he said they were responding well to Bonsai training, including summer candle-pruning. You‘d be hard-pressed to find someone with more horticultural knowledge doing Bonsai.

Welcome!

 

[Lionheart]

I got super excited about loblolly pines... But was somewhat disheartened by more experienced artists.

People told me that Mugo was generally "not good" for bonsai. I've since learned that that is not necessarily true. So if you've got a tree and are so inclined, I say grow it, or try to anyway, and see what happens.

 

[GGB]

People told me that Mugo was generally "not good" for bonsai. I've since learned that that is not necessarily true. So if you've got a tree and are so inclined, I say grow it, or try to anyway, and see what happens.

It's comments like that, that keep me going with loblolly. Like I said I regret tossing out the handful I did.
It does seem like things go down fast when folks transition from nursery pot to bonsai culture, or yamadori to pot. For that reason I will grow all mine to maturity in pots. I'm hoping that helps put me at an advantage to taming the needles and over all health