Manmountain526
Mame
These are 4 of my 7 Podocarpus seedlings. They are growing strong. Someday they will hopefully make a great bonsai. 
Podocarpus macrophyllus Seedlings!
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Leo in N E Illinois
The Professor
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I enjoy raising seedlings. the ''nursery'' end of bonsai. It will be quite a few years before these are up to ''pre-bonsai'' size. But it is fun raising seedlings with bonsai in mind. You can train the roots for a better nebari. You can try to get branching. It can take many years to get the diameter of the trunks up to a size that will make a believable bonsai. Even for the smallest of bonsai you will want trunks over an inch in diameter, two inches would be better. (5 cm minimum) you will need closer to 4 inch diameter trunk if you are shooting for a tree taller than one foot. I have a lot of seedlings, in the ''back part'' of the collection, where mostly they get watered, fertilized and then forgotten about. Suddenly you realize 10 years has gone by and you have some really cool stock to work with.
I enjoy raising seedlings. the ''nursery'' end of bonsai. It will be quite a few years before these are up to ''pre-bonsai'' size. But it is fun raising seedlings with bonsai in mind. You can train the roots for a better nebari. You can try to get branching. It can take many years to get the diameter of the trunks up to a size that will make a believable bonsai. Even for the smallest of bonsai you will want trunks over an inch in diameter, two inches would be better. (5 cm minimum) you will need closer to 4 inch diameter trunk if you are shooting for a tree taller than one foot. I have a lot of seedlings, in the ''back part'' of the collection, where mostly they get watered, fertilized and then forgotten about. Suddenly you realize 10 years has gone by and you have some really cool stock to work with.
Manmountain526
Mame
That is the plan with these. I started these last year and they have grown pretty good so far. I am waiting until the little seedling pots are full of roots and then I am going to repot them into something a little larger so they can grow some more. That is all I plan for them this year. They will be great someday, some year
Leo in N E Illinois
The Professor
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That is the plan with these. I started these last year and they have grown pretty good so far. I am waiting until the little seedling pots are full of roots and then I am going to repot them into something a little larger so they can grow some more. That is all I plan for them this year. They will be great someday, some year
Read up on the various JBP from seed threads in the Pines sub-forum. Even though Podocarpus are not Pines at all, there are some ''ideas'' such as sacrifice branches, and tricks around keeping branches that will become the actual bonsai small with short internodes while the sacrifice branches run long and tall with long internodes. You will need to move these up to larger and larger pots or better yet, growing trays or collananders. You can put good growth on them once they are big enough to use a container roughly the volume of a 3 gallon nursery can. I use Anderson flats, 16 x 16 x 5 inch trays with mesh bottoms. They hold more media than a 3 gallon nursery pot.
Seedlings will spend a considerable number of years being 5 to 10 times the height they will be when finished. My Amur maple, that I intend to finish at 8 inches tall is currently 5 feet tall. I'm trying to develop a beer can diameter trunk. Right now, even at 5 feet tall the trunk is only twice the diameter of a pencil. Got to bulk them up. Some bulk up quicker than others. It was something that took me a long time to learn as a beginner, that I had to let young trees grow out, grow tall, get bushy, before bringing them DOWN to bonsai size. You don't really growth them UP to bonsai size. Grow them out until the trunk is the ideal finished diameter, which can mean a tree as much as 12 feet tall. Only then cut them back to bonsai size. It took me a few decades to realize this is what had to me done. Once a tree is in a small bonsai pot, the trunk will really stop developing diameter. I had a pencil thin pomegranate in a bonsai pot, kept it there for 40 years, at the time I let it go it was still less than one inch in diameter. The trunk remains static as far as diameter goes if the tree is growing slowly in a small bonsai pot.
I'm just offering this as help, or encouragement, not trying to discourage you. I also don't know if you already know all this or not, I don't know how much experience you have, so I am not trying to talk down to you.
Some threads for ideas. Podocarpus growth habit is different than pine, but the idea of training a low branch as the ''bonsai'' and letting the trunk run as a sacrifice to thicken the trunk is the concept that I think would help you develop some really cool podocarpus.
Eric Schrader, Bonhe and others had some great threads.
https://bonsainut.com/threads/korean-black-pine-in-training.22212/
https://bonsainut.com/threads/a-few-pine-seeds-6-years-later.7033/
Manmountain526
Mame
Thank you very much for all of that knowledge. I am not one to turn away any word of advice whether I know it or not. I appreciate all that information. I didn't even think about checking out the pine threads. I will do that. I was planning on trying out the colander for these maybe in the summer or late spring depending on how far they have gotten root wise.
I have an Amur maple also. My trunk is about 2 inches now. The tree was quite tall and I cut it back a bit. It has some nice movement on it. It is in desperate need of a repot. It is in a 5 gallon nursery container with roots coming out the bottom and all around the tree inside the pot. I am excited to see what I can do with the roots this spring. It will be the first repot for this tree. Thanks again for all of your wisdom on this subject. I will be returning to this post as time goes on in order to take notes and track my progress as time goes on. Happy growing!
I have an Amur maple also. My trunk is about 2 inches now. The tree was quite tall and I cut it back a bit. It has some nice movement on it. It is in desperate need of a repot. It is in a 5 gallon nursery container with roots coming out the bottom and all around the tree inside the pot. I am excited to see what I can do with the roots this spring. It will be the first repot for this tree. Thanks again for all of your wisdom on this subject. I will be returning to this post as time goes on in order to take notes and track my progress as time goes on. Happy growing!
