I am about to purchase some 3 year old Mikawa JBP seedings and was wondering if I use the same 1:1:1 mix or should it be a different set up? Also any training techniques. I am going to repot them in a short wide terra cotta for awhile. I live in the KCMO area. Ty
Based upon what Ryan and others have said don’t over pot them. Make sure it they will be able to colonize the pot in a couple of years. The roots will be pliable so you can repot and rearrange the roots into a larger pot at that time.
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Wow, thought there would be more chatter.
Ty, i will keep that in mind.
unbelievable! Wow…
I am by no means an authority on JBP…but what you plant them in and the size container depends on what you are trying to do. If you are trying to grow them up they need more room and easy ability to grow, so big pot and nursery soil with some aggregate would be my recommendation. What are your long term goals for these plants? I bought some JBP seedlings last year on ebay. Maybe as big around as my index finger and 20 to 26 inches tall. I took most of the foliage off except for the tops to expose as much trunk as I felt I could. I wire wrapped the trunks and twisted them severely. I then slip potted, removed them from the growing containers they came in and put them in larger 3 gal containers without disturbing the roots (slip out and slip in) with a 50/50 mix of bonsai soil and good nursery growing mix. I will not repot this year. Maybe remove wire and fert heavy, as I am trying to beef them up.
My plan with them are to keep them and create nice Bonsai out of them. Get them as big as I can in the next few years(10 I am assuming) I am wanting to wire them and twist them as well but I dont want to damage anything considering I have never done a seeding of a Pine before. They defiantly need that. Do you have any pics? Any tips in how to twist them without damage. Thank you for you advice, you rock
Nothing much to look at, at the moment. They have been twisted and growing for about 8 months in my care. They are set on top of 1 gal nursery pots. You can see how much more vigorous the tree in the 1 gal is compared to the others. These are kind of an experiment so that is why I suggested planting big.
As far as examples of crazy bending techniques search Hanh Baloc on YouTube. There’s loads of others as well.
Thats awesome! Yes i see the 1 gal…i think I may use the colander/pond basket and build a box to dementions that was given to me by a member of Bonsai Society I am apart of. He is 86 so I might as well try…I may do the gal on my JRP…
Here are my 3 Mikawas (taller ones) and one JRP…Excited to start developing. Am thankful for ur tips. Bonsai is awesome!
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Put your pines in the ground. Lots of sun, fertilizer and water. Here’s a pic of Chris Kirk @ Telperion Farms and how he let’s his pines run for a few years to gain girth in the trunk. He eventually puts these in big plastic buckets or grow bags. You may just want to buy one or two from him. His prices are very reasonable for this type of tree.
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Very, VERY interesting. Thank You…Wow those are some tall Whips!
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Check out the Bonsai Tonight blog. Lots of posts on the various steps of growing JBP from seed. This link is a nice index to them:
In one post Jonas discusses putting the first curves in with wire. This is done different than if you want a larger tree vs a smaller one. If you put too sharp bends in and grow the trunk large the bends might touch or combine generating reverse taper.
Good luck. Doing this myself and it is fun and hopefully rewarding
Chris
Nice! I will check it out
Come to find out, that the tap roots wernt cut in t when they were transferred into their current containers 2 years ago. My question is, Is that bad for the long run? Can I fix this when i up pot? My plan upotting was not to touch any of the roots and just transfer and grow? Any thoughts?