Well this weekend I was down at the Cape for a birthday party, and since it was timed well I decided to dig up a few small prebonsai to grow out. You can’t beat free, especially with our second child on the way.
I have decided to start working with pitch pine more since I have access to them, and they seem to be underutilized as a species for bonsai. I was going to try and collect an larger one but I forgot to bring the large shovel.
The first tree I dug up was a Japanese maple I planted in the fall of 2011. Rabbits have been pruning it down to a stub annually over the last few years so it hasn’t be able to gain as much girth as I had hoped. Going to try the colander growing instead.
Next I dug up a couple of small pitch pines to grow out over the next few years. I planted these in 100% perlite since they had little to no roots. I’ve seen success online that others have had with collected material in perlite so I thought I’d try it myself. The problem with sandy Cape Cod soil is that the roots will run forever before they become feeder roots. The first one came out with nearly any roots at all.
I got decent roots with the next two. and decided to wire some movement into the smaller one for fun.
May try to get this taller one sometime too. I’ll probably take a shovel and trench around it so it can grow some feeder roots this year though.
Tom's Bonsai 