JBP Help

[juice01]

Hi eveyone.

I was just wondering if I post some pics of my JBP, would someone be able to guide me in the direction I should go next?
It has been growing without pruning for a couple years, and is a bit of a bush at the moment.
Some of you may have seen the tree in another forum. I have just taken a heap more pics so that I can explain myself a bit more about it.
Any help would be greatley appreciated.
Cheers
Mick

[VonsGardens]

Post em, a number of folks will give opinions.

[juice01]

Here is my tree.

[juice01]

As you can see, it really needs to be forced to back bud. That is what I think anyway. And the first and second branches need to be shortened and back budded as well. So all help on this would be great. Where do I go from here?
Thanks in advance.
Mick

[juice01]

Here is another pic so you get the idea of it from top to bottom.

[treebeard55]

Looks like a nice tree, Mick, and plenty healthy.

Cutting it back and plucking existing needles will force backbudding. But for specifics, I'm afraid I'm not too much help at present. I'm waiting for the pine heavyweights to speak up.

[VonsGardens]

Mick,
You are in OZ, so you are most likely in "mid spring" with all of the trees and shrubs beginning to grow pretty well? It does not appear that your candles are growing yet, so one of the the things you need to be sure to do is to fertilize the tree well, I prefer organic but folks have lots of luck with just about any slow release fertilizer, coupled with liquid once a week or more.

Additionally, I would suggest wiring and then cutting the really needles back to 4-5 cm in length. The stress and small cracks from wiring frequently helps to promote back-budding. Hope this helps.

John

[juice01]

The buds are starting to get a bit more lenght on them. It is early spring down here at the moment. Yea I have been fertilising the tree once a week with an organic fertiliser. Is there anything I need to do to the candles to promote back budding. The first branch is quite bare from the trunk outwards as you can see. Once I can get some buds around that area I will cut the branches back a bit to shorten them.
Cheers
Mick

[VonsGardens]

Mick,
It needs more fertilizer, can you get rapeseed cakes or even use a chemical slow release fertilizer along with your organic. It needs to be pumped up to be ready to bud back. After the buds grow into candles, you will cut the candles off and pull some needles, this will help to activate the sleeping adventitious buds back closer to the trunk. You have to do the sequence- feed, decandle, feed some more and then allow the internal buds to develop.

Just takes some time.

John

[juice01]

What about dynamic lifter? ( chook poo ). Is that an ok slow release fert?
If not I will have to try and get some rapeseed.
Cheers
Mick