Well, maybe. );-)

Scratch through the bark to determine if the tissue is alive. If you hit hard wood, it's dead. Otherwise, it could rebud.

I have had Blacks lose every needle in the winter from extreme cold and come back with full growth on every existing branch.

Cordially,

Michael Persiano
members.aol.com/iasnob

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lewis
To:
Sent: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:36:41 -0400
Subject: [IBC] Dead or Alive?


Gary Huff wrote:
Ok, I want to see if I can ask the dumbest question a newbie can ask, but I'm learning a lot by asking dumb ones. I received a month ago a Japanese Black Pine which was about 6 to 8 years old. I think I underwatered it because I was trying to keep it a little on the dry side, but learned the soil should be a little on the wet side, but all its needles have turned brown and are falling off. Not wanting to give up too easily on it, is it dead and should I forget it, or is there some remote hope that it will come back? See I told you it was a dumb question and I would appreciate any dumb answers. Also I have noticed that some bonsai listings have a "Sunset" zone. Does anyone know where I can find out what mine is?

If "all" of its needles have turned brown and "all" are falling off, I'm afraid that the news is bad.

"Wet" and "dry" are very subjective terms. Few pines like "wet" soil -- spruce pine and slash pine are major exceptions. Some pines live in the desert where they get less than 10 inches of rain a _year_. They do fine. Most are somewhere in between. Subjective. My guess is that you may have overcompensated and watered too much, but I am NOT a bonsai pine expert -- or even afficianado.

Get the new Sunset "Bonsai" book. The Sunset zone system is mapped and described nicely. N. Va. (outside the mountains) seems to be zone 32. Mountains are 36. _I_ find the Sunset zones to be quite useful, BUT its developers live in the 10 western states (the base for Sunset Magazine's circulation) and may have greeater expertise for that area than for the humid eastern USA.

Jim Lewis - - This economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. - Gaylord Nelson

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