I’ve never seen this happen on a Ponderosa pine. The buds from last year opened with stiff, sharp, and relatively short needles. You can see the growth has not yet hardened off from the original push
Then I started seeing what looked like buds already. They swelled and are starting to open. The first set of needles have not even dropped their sheaths.
Has anyone seen this before?
Weird, it almost looks like the bottom of the candles opened but the top did not. Is that possible? I.e. those aren’t new buds, just the tips of the original ones?
Sorry if that’s a stupid idea, but it’s just so out of character for a pondo to have a second flush. I would think it’s more a sign of damage, rather than too much vigor…What climate zone are you?
I know what you’re saying, but they are new buds. It’s completely out of character from what I’ve seen from this tree in the past. It has buds popping all over.
I’m in the North East, zone 6b. I’ve had this tree for years. A large portion of the tree died two years ago (knocked off a bench and broke several branches). Last year I let it grow then restyled it.
Curious to know what your fertilizing regiment was.
It sounds to me that it has plenty of stored energy to sustain and add more foliage.
Remember that all a tree wants to do is be the biggest tree it can be, and with all that energy in its bank account it has to go somewhere, so the tree will spend that energy on foliage mass. 
My goal this year was for it to grow so it has been getting Biogold every six weeks since April.
I’m not concerned, I just think it’s odd.
I’ve had this happen the year after a severe cutback on a subalpine fir. A lot of energy being pushed into a small number of meristems. Hasn’t done it since.
