M. Frary's 6 year scots pine contest thread.

They are more commonly known as French Blue. All of my Scots are French Blue, Mike; one of the Scots you got from me is French Blue if not both of them, one of them could be Anglia, the little double trunk could be Anglia.

Weird! Here in Europe, we don't know that cultivar. We have pinus sylvestris glauca (blueish) , norsk typ (bushy, compact) and some personal cultivars (unofficial sometimes), but French blue is nowhere to be found.
I'm thinking it's just another name for the glauca variety.
 
Weird! Here in Europe, we don't know that cultivar. We have pinus sylvestris glauca (blueish) , norsk typ (bushy, compact) and some personal cultivars (unofficial sometimes), but French blue is nowhere to be found.
I'm thinking it's just another name for the glauca variety.
You guys call Scots Pines, Forrest Pines a term we do not use. It's not weird, it's just the way it is. That's why we use botanical names.
 
Weird! Here in Europe, we don't know that cultivar. We have pinus sylvestris glauca (blueish) , norsk typ (bushy, compact) and some personal cultivars (unofficial sometimes), but French blue is nowhere to be found.
I'm thinking it's just another name for the glauca variety.
A common cultivar, frequently used for bonsai, is Watereri. A dwarf variety with blueish needles. Growing slower than regular scots pines, butcan make fine bonsai
 
All Scots pine growing wild here have a blue tint. It's how I locate them while I'm looking for trees to collect. White spruce are the most consistently blue tree here. Then blue spruce. But in lines Scots are the bluest. White pines are slightly blue. Jack and red pine are green but different shades.
I wear polarized,amber tinted lens sunglasses to see all of this. Even when the sun isn't out. To the naked eye they all look green.
I can spot a Scots pine ar 75 mph going down the freeway.
There are tons in the median up here on I -75. I dont think I can get permission though.
 
No Jack's there? I would think they would like Maine.
here's one I killed. Prob died the second i walked up on it. They litter the shores amd islands around mt katahdin. I reckon I'll try again next spring. I tey guy I dug with collects late summer into fall with good success. Not so much for me, or I picked bad locations with too tough of extractions

 
tey guy I dug with collects late summer into fall with good success
I dont have the greatest success rate. All I collected in late summer are dead.
Its 50% in the spring.
I found one that I trenches one side of the roots this year. Next year I'll do the other side.
I've found that if they are in the deep woods they are easier to collect. The roots dont seem to be as long because they tend to stay near the top where all of the good soil is. By themselves they tend to dig deep.
 
I've found that if they are in the deep woods they are easier to collect. The roots dont seem to be as long because they tend to stay near the top where all of the good soil is.
I second that! I found a sweet spot in the woods, and they come right out. No taproot whatsoever. But they do tend to have large pancakes full of surface roots.


On a side note, a useful addition from observing my backyard: I found decapitation to work as well for scots pines. Side branching achieved in the seedling stage, year one. Seedling cutting sounds fun, but it's just a mayor setback in time to get them to root (3 months until active growth slowly returns). With decapitation, yes, there is more rootwork to be done later, but lower branching is achieved easily and doesn't take that long to recover (around 1-2 months without loss of vigor). And on the plus side, they don't die like all my seedling cuttings did. I found something that works for me. Again, I'm not saying anyone should, but I want people to know that they could if they wanted to.
 
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An update on my seedlings from August. I let them grow until October when I decided to have a look at the roots. Some had a good bonsai foundation with nice root spread not too far away from the foliage. With these, I trimmed the roots back quite hard to encourage more roots close into the trunkline and then potted up in individual pots. Others that didn't have such a good start I decided to do something a bit different. I followed the JBP stem cutting principal outlined/utilised a lot in the JBP comp and gave about a dozen or so Scots Pine seedlings this treatment. I hadn't heard of anybody doing this with Scots before, but I figured I had enough plants to experiment a bit with them so I wanted to give it a crack. A month or so on and so far things look OK. I wouldn't say growth is phenomenal but I feel like they are beginning to move again as I can see fresh green emerging so I'm happy with the outcome. Photo below shows a few in the back row that just had the roots trimmed, and those in the front went through the stem cutting technique. Will be interesting to see how different they look in 6-12 months...
IMG_3552.jpg
 
Whelp, my tray of Scots started this spring didn't make it. They slowly started to brown up one by one. I think the soil mix was to fine and wet. I should have transplanted them mid summer into better substrate. I do have a bunch I started spring 2017 that are trucking right along. Might have to cheat and do a 5 year plan to stay in this contest
 
An update on my seedlings from August. I let them grow until October when I decided to have a look at the roots. Some had a good bonsai foundation with nice root spread not too far away from the foliage. With these, I trimmed the roots back quite hard to encourage more roots close into the trunkline and then potted up in individual pots. Others that didn't have such a good start I decided to do something a bit different. I followed the JBP stem cutting principal outlined/utilised a lot in the JBP comp and gave about a dozen or so Scots Pine seedlings this treatment. I hadn't heard of anybody doing this with Scots before, but I figured I had enough plants to experiment a bit with them so I wanted to give it a crack. A month or so on and so far things look OK. I wouldn't say growth is phenomenal but I feel like they are beginning to move again as I can see fresh green emerging so I'm happy with the outcome. Photo below shows a few in the back row that just had the roots trimmed, and those in the front went through the stem cutting technique. Will be interesting to see how different they look in 6-12 months...
View attachment 217922
How old were these when you performed the root work and cutting technique? I see you're down under and your seasons are upside down too. Did you start them in August? Is that your spring? I'm going to do some root work to my current 2 yr seedlings this spring as they go into yr 3 here in the states. If I can get that out of the way in year one that would be a big time saver and advantage to development.
 
Nevermind I just went back thru the thread. I see you started them early August. So about 2.5 months old when work was performed?
 
Nevermind I just went back thru the thread. I see you started them early August. So about 2.5 months old when work was performed?
Yeah, that's about right. I sowed the seeds in early August after soaking/stratifying for 4 weeks. That is our last month of winter, Spring begins in September, which is probably a more optimum time to plant them but I was keen and had planned a trip away for then so thought I'd get in early. Apart from getting to work on the roots, the other reason to get them out was to repot into a more free draining bonsai type mix rather than the basic seed raising mix they were initially in. I think working the roots as early as possible sets you up for a better tree and less work in the subsequent years to fix stuff that hasn't developed as you want. I posted some pics of the kind of work I do in my JBP comp thread:
https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/ryceman3s-6yr-jbp-contest-entry.34349/
You might sacrifice a bit of growth for the season but for me it's worth it. Because I got them going early I still have a lot of Spring and Summer left for them to grow too ... happy with that!
 
You got me confused now... o_O
Your updated trees are posted in Mike's @M. Frary thread?
Why so?
Sorry for the confusion @my nellie , these are not my JBP but Scots pine I germinated pretty much at the same time. I really should start a new thread for them though so as not to bog down @M. Frary 's Scots pine thread too much. I just posted here as this is where I put in the original pic of my seedlings ... I'll get onto it soon ... my apologies!
 
Sorry for the confusion @my nellie , these are not my JBP but Scots pine I germinated pretty much at the same time. I really should start a new thread for them though so as not to bog down @M. Frary 's Scots pine thread too much. I just posted here as this is where I put in the original pic of my seedlings ... I'll get onto it soon ... my apologies!
Everything's cool man.
I like seeing others projects no matter where they're posted.
 
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