My cousin decided he would surprise me with a filed collected Loblolly Pine. Its currently in a small nursery container with the filed collected sand it was in. For the long term health of the tree, do I leave it alone for a few weeks, see if signs of recovery and new growth appear? When should I consider re-potting into a larger container with bonsai soil?
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Video seemed very specific to the Hemlock. Curious if this would be the same approach to the Loblolly and that it currently sets in mostly native sand. Should I re-pot right away or let it recover a bit from the collection. I guess my original questions still go unanswered for now.
I think it depends on how bad the current substrate is. if water percolates well, then Iād leave as is with the soil it was growing on for a year at least and either way repot next spring - if it grows well great if it doesnāt then it may not survive the collection process and you have nothing to loose. The root system has already been stressed enough probably.
Iād also check out this video for an overall soil lesson in what it will eventually go in. Most likely, it should just go in pumice and regain strength and root mass. Did he just collect it? A year ago? Whatās the health of the tree right now? In any repot, donāt bare root the tree. Be sure to keep some native soil.
Kip, it was collected this weekend, it appears to be very healthy. Here are a few pics, itās in native sand.
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CJ - glad to hear thereās another aspiring loblolly cultivator; I live in Houston and they are native here ā¦ my understanding is to try and transplant it into a pumice soil (1/4-1/8ā I believe) ā¦ if you have an actual rootball then interfere with it as little as possible, but free up the periphery gently so you can get some pumice integrated into the root tips that dangle out of the rootball (kind of like how ryan did the huge yamadori repot a couple weeks ago) ā¦ the idea being to keep most of the rootball intact but give it the chance to grow into the pumice. Hope this helps ā¦ Iām definitely not an expert and hopefully some folks w real collecting experience can chime in ā¦ let me know how it goes!
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Check out āpost collection pottingā stream from 11-3-17
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DrC, glad to hear thereās is another. Letās colloborate and share our progress. Upload a few pics of your Loblolly, id like to see them. My worry is there is no or very little root ball and mostly sand. I think the correct approach for now is to let it be and see how it reacts to the collection process. If I see signs of growth, I will feed with organics and let it gain strength for next spring repot. Not sure how the mix of sand and pumice would affect the ecosystem of the roots within the container in so much as would there be the proper balance of O2 and H2O.
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Good advice DrC! This seems spot on from what Iāve been gathering.
my fall collection died a slow death (as ryan predicted) sincecthere was really no rootball ā¦ all clay soil out here so just sent off 5-7 1/2ā-1ā runners a no fine roots; i felt proud keeping it alive for a month until i realized thatās about how long a christmas tree lives w no bonsai skill whatsoever 
plan this year is to try to develop the roots in the field and collect either fall 2018 or spring 2019; all of these trees are on ādeath rowā (ie future home building sites) so i can experiment and push the limits guilt-free