Seeding Japanese red pine (Akamatsu)

It is getting warmer and warmer day by day. I seeded Akamatsu (Japanese red pine).

Preparation

Not so many thing to do, nothing difficult or complicated.

Preparation for seeds

I put the seeds in the water for one night. The purpose is to make them absorb water and to get to know which seeds will sprout. The small, rounded shape seeds without “wing” is the seeds of red pine. (I put 3 kind of seeds at once; big ones are Goyomatsu (Japanese white pine), small ones with “wing” are Yamamomiji (Japanese maple).

Preparation for the pot (seedling bed)

As always, I use a cup of instant YAKISOBA noodle. The biggest one!

Like this.

Open small holes with tooth pick. The holes are for weep (water) drain.

Quite easy…

Done! There’s no rule for number, location of holes..

Put soil in the pot. I used this soil as usual.


“Mixed soil for mini-bonsai”. Size of each soil is around 1~3mm.

I put this much. Seems too much…?

Seeding

Now, let’s sow seeds. This year I planned to sow 3 kind of seeds in one pot.

Seeds are already on the soil.. I sowed seeds of red pine in green part of above photo. Usually we use only the seeds which sank in the water, but I sowed all. I wanted to know the difference, so I sowed the seeds which didn’t sink on upper part of above photo.

Do you recognize the seeds? I tried to sow the seeds as evenly as possible. No need to be too nervus because the seedlings will be moved to other pot after seedling cutting.

Add soil on the seeds.

Maybe I put the soil too much…?

Watering

At last pour A LOT OF water and done! Give water until the water draining from the bottom gets transparent and clean.

I guess new buds will come out in few weeks. I sowed 40~50 seeds this time. How many of them will grow…? Let’s see!