Pinus Pinea for a beginner

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Bonsai pots tend to be wide and shallow. I would be more concerned with getting the root system ready for a bonsai pot. I would repot in spring or in what ever in California counts as ideal time to repot pines, since you do not have what I would call a "normal winter". You have 3 seasons, cool with rare occasional rain, blazing hot with zero rain, and fire season, which is dry, blazing hot and with fierce winds.

Most "off the rack" bonsai pots are less than 4 inches in depth. If you need a deeper pot, you have to incur the expense of having a pot custom made. Your top priority should be creating a shallow & wide root system. My next move with this tree would be to move it to an Anderson flat, or a home made grow box or some similar container. Anderson flats, model 2401B are 16 x 16 x 5 inches, and hold roughly 3 gallons of potting media. This would be my next choice of a pot for this tree. Whether you repot now or in 2022.

THat is what I would do if it were my tree.

 

[Wulfskaar]

Bonsai pots tend to be wide and shallow. I would be more concerned with getting the root system ready for a bonsai pot. I would repot in spring or in what ever in California counts as ideal time to repot pines, since you do not have what I would call a "normal winter". You have 3 seasons, cool with rare occasional rain, blazing hot with zero rain, and fire season, which is dry, blazing hot and with fierce winds.

Most "off the rack" bonsai pots are less than 4 inches in depth. If you need a deeper pot, you have to incur the expense of having a pot custom made. Your top priority should be creating a shallow & wide root system. My next move with this tree would be to move it to an Anderson flat, or a home made grow box or some similar container. Anderson flats, model 2401B are 16 x 16 x 5 inches, and hold roughly 3 gallons of potting media. This would be my next choice of a pot for this tree. Whether you repot now or in 2022.

THat is what I would do if it were my tree.

Thank you! I highly appreciate the advice. Building a box is super easy for me, so that's what I'll do. I'll likely also do that for a Coast Live Oak I've got growing in my yard. Giving me dimensions and volume are very helpful!

I was just worrying that cutting off so much foliage would require some recovery time. I did notice that the tree was obviously put into this larger pot not too long ago. You can still see the soil from the original pot and when the tree moves, that soil moves almost independently of the surrounding soil. Basically, I have doubts the roots have grown much into the newer soil.

This brings up another question (sorry!)... Potting media: I'm not totally sure what mix to get. I've been researching but see a million different mixes.

As far as our local climate, I'm close to the coast, so the 3 seasons are a bit different than what you stated (less hot). From what I've read, this area is well-suited for this type of tree. It's very mild here (lovely but boring). Basically, we are between 50 and 90 F (lows to highs) for the vast majority of the year.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

You are lucky climate wise.

Potting media - there are thousands of acceptable possibilities. The best potting media is one you can source easily. If you run out of potting media, you should be able to get more within a reasonable amount of time, for me, 3 hours round trip is my personal inconvenience cut off. All my media components are less than a one and half hour drive away.

I'm lucky enough to have a good bonsai nursery one and a half hour drive from my house, so I can get Akadama and other imported bonsai soils without having to hassle with mail order or excessive long drives. This was not always the case.

There are many bonsai nurseries in central and southern California. You should seek out the ones within 90 miles of your location and see what potting media they recommend and keep in stock. The advantage of a local bonsai nursery, is they will know your climate, and what works best in your climate.

Most good bonsai potting mixes have as their main ingredient Pumice. Pumice is the single best component to use as the base of a mix. Pumice & Akadama & Lava is a very common mix. Some people use pumice and douglas fir bark. Some use other ingredients. Key is that particle size should be uniform. Always sift your media to remove fines. Particles from 1/8 to 1/4 inch for a medium fine mix. 1/4 to 1.2 inch for a medium coarse mix. The more coarse mix is used for larger pots. The finer mix for smaller pots.

Generally it is preferred to use a mix of at least 2 different components. Some mixes will have 5 or more components. Single component mixes tend to have problems. Pumice is probably the only single component that won't have serious problems.

Common components include
Pumice
Lava, red or black
Akadama
Perlite & or Sponge Rock - the coarser grades are better. The fine stuff is no good.
Turface MVP or other fired, or calcined clay. Firing has to be high enough temp that clay does not turn to mush.
Diatomaceous earth - one product is Napa part #8822 Oil Dry.
Haydite - expanded shale
Hydroton
Leca
Aliflor
Douglas Fir Bark - seedling grade used for orchids works well
Kanuma
Peat moss, sifted to remove fines. You only want the chunks, not the powder
horticultural charcoal & or Bio-Char
Crushed granite and or crushed quartzite - sold as poultry grit. The grower grade and layer grades are coarse enough. Turkey grade is good too. The fine grade for chicks is too fine. Cherrystone is a good brand
Decomposed granite.
shredded & chopped rubber tire mulch - has been used by some.
Grodan rock wool
Promix coir based potting soil
Farfad potting soil

and a thousand other things have been used in bonsai potting mixes.

If I were to pick just one mix
Pumice & Akadama
or
Pumice & bark.

I currently use
2 parts pumice, one part bark, half part horticultural charcoal, more pumice for pines, more bark for water loving deciduous.

 

[Wulfskaar]

You are lucky climate wise.

Potting media - there are thousands of acceptable possibilities. The best potting media is one you can source easily. If you run out of potting media, you should be able to get more within a reasonable amount of time, for me, 3 hours round trip is my personal inconvenience cut off. All my media components are less than a one and half hour drive away.

I'm lucky enough to have a good bonsai nursery one and a half hour drive from my house, so I can get Akadama and other imported bonsai soils without having to hassle with mail order or excessive long drives. This was not always the case.

There are many bonsai nurseries in central and southern California. You should seek out the ones within 90 miles of your location and see what potting media they recommend and keep in stock. The advantage of a local bonsai nursery, is they will know your climate, and what works best in your climate.

Most good bonsai potting mixes have as their main ingredient Pumice. Pumice is the single best component to use as the base of a mix. Pumice & Akadama & Lava is a very common mix. Some people use pumice and douglas fir bark. Some use other ingredients. Key is that particle size should be uniform. Always sift your media to remove fines. Particles from 1/8 to 1/4 inch for a medium fine mix. 1/4 to 1.2 inch for a medium coarse mix. The more coarse mix is used for larger pots. The finer mix for smaller pots.

Generally it is preferred to use a mix of at least 2 different components. Some mixes will have 5 or more components. Single component mixes tend to have problems. Pumice is probably the only single component that won't have serious problems.

Common components include
Pumice
Lava, red or black
Akadama
Perlite & or Sponge Rock - the coarser grades are better. The fine stuff is no good.
Turface MVP or other fired, or calcined clay. Firing has to be high enough temp that clay does not turn to mush.
Diatomaceous earth - one product is Napa part #8822 Oil Dry.
Haydite - expanded shale
Hydroton
Leca
Aliflor
Douglas Fir Bark - seedling grade used for orchids works well
Kanuma
Peat moss, sifted to remove fines. You only want the chunks, not the powder
horticultural charcoal & or Bio-Char
Crushed granite and or crushed quartzite - sold as poultry grit. The grower grade and layer grades are coarse enough. Turkey grade is good too. The fine grade for chicks is too fine. Cherrystone is a good brand
Decomposed granite.
shredded & chopped rubber tire mulch - has been used by some.
Grodan rock wool
Promix coir based potting soil
Farfad potting soil

and a thousand other things have been used in bonsai potting mixes.

If I were to pick just one mix
Pumice & Akadama
or
Pumice & bark.

I currently use
2 parts pumice, one part bark, half part horticultural charcoal, more pumice for pines, more bark for water loving deciduous.

This helps me A LOT!

Thank you, Leo.

I've already got some wood for the box, so I'll be working my way towards repotting in a couple months.

 

[CelloBonsai]

I'm definitely not going to abandon it. I'm not planning on entering any contests or shows or anything like that, so I'll just see what happens. This is just for me.

I will consider what you said about the trunk. I feel it's a decent thickness now (why I picked this one), but I will think twice.

Nigel Saunders mentioned you can't really call it a hobby unless you have several trees to work with, so I do plan on having a few more. I definitely have plans to get one of the pines you mentioned as well as something deciduous.

Uh oh. I don't have a hobby going yet! Hopefully I'll get a second tree soon so I can claim official hobbyist status.

 

[Wulfskaar]

Uh oh. I don't have a hobby going yet! Hopefully I'll get a second tree soon so I can claim official hobbyist status.

I have 0 bonsai, but I'm working on making a few.

 

[CelloBonsai]

Mine would also be considered a pre-bonsai.

 

[Wulfskaar]

Bonsai pots tend to be wide and shallow. I would be more concerned with getting the root system ready for a bonsai pot. I would repot in spring or in what ever in California counts as ideal time to repot pines, since you do not have what I would call a "normal winter". You have 3 seasons, cool with rare occasional rain, blazing hot with zero rain, and fire season, which is dry, blazing hot and with fierce winds.

Most "off the rack" bonsai pots are less than 4 inches in depth. If you need a deeper pot, you have to incur the expense of having a pot custom made. Your top priority should be creating a shallow & wide root system. My next move with this tree would be to move it to an Anderson flat, or a home made grow box or some similar container. Anderson flats, model 2401B are 16 x 16 x 5 inches, and hold roughly 3 gallons of potting media. This would be my next choice of a pot for this tree. Whether you repot now or in 2022.

THat is what I would do if it were my tree.

I've built a box for it. I slightly changed the dimensions but it will perfectly hold 3.5 gallons of volume with a little wiggle room. Thank, Leo, for the dimensions!

I've also just received my organic conifer soil from Bonsai Jack.
Ingredients:
32% 1/4 inch Douglas Fir Bark
32% 1/4 inch Pumice
15% 1/4 inch Lava,
15% 1/4 inch Monto Clay (1/4 inch Turface)
6% 1/4 inch Horticulture Charcoal
pH: 5.8

Pre-repotting Report: The tree is doing very well right now. It appears that the trunk is healing very nicely from all the places I removed lower branches from and the tree generally looks very healthy and fresh. The candles are getting longer on the top branches and there are young needles coming out of the lower branches. I'll be repotting in the coming days! This is a very exciting time since it's my first repot. I'm just hoping I don't kill it!

QUESTION: Tonight, I plan to spray the box down with a sealant/protectant. Will this hurt the tree at all or is it better to leave just the wood as-is???

 

[CelloBonsai]

I've built a box for it. I slightly changed the dimensions but it will perfectly hold 3.5 gallons of volume with a little wiggle room. Thank, Leo, for the dimensions!

I've also just received my organic conifer soil from Bonsai Jack.
Ingredients:
32% 1/4 inch Douglas Fir Bark
32% 1/4 inch Pumice
15% 1/4 inch Lava,
15% 1/4 inch Monto Clay (1/4 inch Turface)
6% 1/4 inch Horticulture Charcoal
pH: 5.8

Pre-repotting Report: The tree is doing very well right now. It appears that the trunk is healing very nicely from all the places I removed lower branches from and the tree generally looks very healthy and fresh. The candles are getting longer on the top branches and there are young needles coming out of the lower branches. I'll be repotting in the coming days! This is a very exciting time since it's my first repot. I'm just hoping I don't kill it!

QUESTION: Tonight, I plan to spray the box down with a sealant/protectant. Will this hurt the tree at all or is it better to leave just the wood as-is???

With raised garden beds, I have always been given the advice to used untreated wood. I am not sure if that is for the sake of edible food, or for the health of the plant.

 

[Wulfskaar]

With raised garden beds, I have always been given the advice to used untreated wood. I am not sure if that is for the sake of edible food, or for the health of the plant.

We actually followed that rule with our vegetable grow boxes. I just need it to last 2 years, but it's just plywood.

I found this! https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/grow-box-nebari-board-sealants-to-avoid.40922/

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

For bonsai purposes, most wood treatments are not a problem. The "old school" treatment is a coat or two of linseed oil. This will waterproof the wood. Thompson's waterseal is basically linseed oil with added pigments and driers to prevent it from being tacky. The treated lumber, the "green stuff" used to contain arsenic but since the 1990's it is now only treated with a copper compound as a wood preservative. It is unlikely to hurt the pre-bonsai trees.

 

[Wulfskaar]

Pulled it out of the nursery pot and into a box today. The roots seemed good and plentiful! I did remove that one crossing root in first pic. It's leaning a bit in the second pic. That has been fixed.

I'm hoping for a flush of growth at some point this year, then some light pruning in Fall. We'll see what happens!

 

[Potawatomi13]

According to a hort site I googled they are pruned in winter.

They lie AND sell personal info. Avoid if having 2 brain cells or more!

 

[Wulfskaar]

I have another question... I haven't moved this tree in a couple months since repotting into a box, but the side that's away from the sun is getting a lot of orange needles. I thought it was due to the repotting, but I recently noticed the sunny side looks much better.

Should I be regularly rotating the tree so it gets sun everywhere? If so, how often?

 

[Wulfskaar]

I searched and found someone giving advice to rotate a tree weekly to get sun. Is this normal?

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Yes.
If it were me, at this point I’d definitely be rotating 180 degrees once a week as a minimum, twice is even better if you have the time.....please do that now, or risk the back being thinner then the front by fall.
cheers
DSD sends

 

[Wulfskaar]

Yes.
If it were me, at this point I’d definitely be rotating 180 degrees once a week as a minimum, twice is even better if you have the time.....please do that now, or risk the back being thinner then the front by fall.
cheers
DSD sends

I have not been rotating but will start today. Thank you!

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

No worries. On another note, you may have the nebari buried a bit too deep, but this could be the photo impression I’m seeing too.

Some folks start by burying the nebari just a bit too deep on the first root cut back, then scrape that extra bit of the surface media off after they are sure the tree is responding positively. This action avoids a higher layer of roots forming, above the present nebari, complicating the situation next time you work the roots.

Just a thought.
Cheers
DSD sends

 

[Wulfskaar]

No worries. On another note, you may have the nebari buried a bit too deep, but this could be the photo impression I’m seeing too.

Some folks start by burying the nebari just a bit too deep on the first root cut back, then scrape that extra bit of the surface media off after they are sure the tree is responding positively. This action avoids a higher layer of roots forming, above the present nebari, complicating the situation next time you work the roots.

Just a thought.
Cheers
DSD sends

If you look at the pic with the bare roots showing, you can see the trunk has a weird "knee" like it was folded over on itself when it was very young. There isn't really any good nebari to develop at this point. There was a crossing root (seen in root pic) that I tried to bend straight, but it broke at the trunk so I removed it entirely. If I bring the soil level down, it will really show that knee. Not really sure what to do about it other than cover it up. Maybe the roots will develop more and I can show more of it when I repot in 2023?

Thanks though! I appreciate any advice I can get!

 

[Wulfskaar]

New growth at the candles! I'm kinda wondering if I should have pruned some of the top candles to discourage vertical growth. Is it too late to cut at least a couple of the tops ones as an experiment??? There is a cluster of 3 at the very apex that have not yet pushed needles, but are about to.