Bonsai Tonight

An educational website about bonsai development

Watch out for wilting candles on young pines

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It’s fun to see new shoots elongating on black and red pines this time of year. The light colored growth makes a nice contrast against the darker green foliage from the previous year and the length of the shoots are a good measure of the tree’s health.

Spring growth on a black pine group planting

Because pines grow so quickly this time of year, it’s not uncommon for the new shoots, or candles, to wilt a little. This can happen even when a tree has adequate water.

 Wilted foliage

Whenever I see subtle wilting, I double check to make sure the trees have enough water. If the wilt is more pronounced, I know the tree is dry. When this happens, I’ll water several times in a row and then return to the tree after 30-60 minutes and water a few more times.

I was surprised, earlier this week, to see so much wilt on the pine below after a rainy day.

Wilted red pine

The old soil had remained dry despite the rain which caused the new shoots to wilt. The tree recovered after several waterings but it was a good reminder that bonsai can need watering on rainy days too!

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Comments

  1. candles absorbed more water than needles so during growth time more watering wont hurt .

  2. That’s so true! Even more with a deciduous tree: the leaves are just like an umbrella and the soil may be dry also after a thunderstorm!
    Alessandro

  3. I was literally googling about this yesterday and couldn’t find anything, thank you for reading my mind!

  4. Hi Mr. Jonas, tangent question… I see you have your pines training in colanders. Two questions.

    1. How long do you keep them in colanders? Do you keep them in colanders past primary, secondary branch already set? Or keep them in colanders as you’re developing the trunk and primary structure?

    2. Do you repot your colander pines every 2 years or do you generally repot greater than ever 2 years? If so approximately how long?

    • Hi Jonathan – my standard approach is to keep pines in colanders as long as they have sacrifice branches. I repot pines in colanders every 1-3 years depending on how much the trees have grown (and how well the colanders are holding up). Hope this helps!

      • Would a colander “help” develop roots better than a bonsai pot assuming the same soil medium and the tree is still in development?

      • That’s the idea behind the colanders (to produce better roots). I have a number of trees in different pots to see if I can find significant differences between the two approaches. Will post if I find a general pattern one way or the other.

  5. ive also seen this in my 1 yr pine seedlings. thank you for this! had just recently reached out this yr on some forums about this.