I have a six foot tall beach pine, I live in a northern California coastal area. I have a small garden and want to keep the pine from getting over about seven feet. Someone said I could do some bonsai but I don't know how. Please advise. Thanks!
At 7' tall, it's going to be one terrific bonsai! You do understand that it will have to live in a container forever? And you'll have to learn how to root prune, and mix up the right stuff to plant it in? Great! Now what you need is hands-on help.. this is NOT a job to be done alone, certainly not by someone who knows more or less nothing about bonsai, and definitely not instantaneously. Your best bet is to find a local bonsai club (lots in CA) and get help from them, as they'll be only too happy to have such a great tree to assist with, but will be able to show and tell you exactly how to deal with the job and the follow-up. I can help you find a club, but you'll need to tell me what larger town you're near to (I don't imagine Arcata is all that big or full of bonsai people).
As indicated already, it won't be an easy job - another option is to donate (or sell!) the pine to a bonsai collector, and plant something smaller in its place
Hi again, I think I should clarify something - it's more than likely that you'll be 'told' to cut it down to a lower height (4-5'), normally a no-no for pines), but what'll happen (no, it won't bud back lower down necessarily) is that you'll get a cool fatter trunk - don't cut lower branches (yet), they're needed for the fattening - and you'll see how to train up a branch below the cut to become the new 'leader' (so you won't have a flat-top tree), but the choice will be yours of course.
Hi, try these two... William Hegy 707-677-3995 whegy@aol.com Adorni Center 1011 Waterfront Drive* Eureka, Ca 95501 Deer Meadow Bonsai 3700 Deer Meadow Lane Occidental, CA 95465 707 874-1679