Pine enthusiasts: Is my pine doomed?
Have a longleaf pine I’ve been trying to grow in the SC Sandhills which has mostly been a trooper but suddenly a lot of the leaves turned brown and the remaining ones turned yellow. This is what also happened for the only other one on the property before it gave up and died very shortly thereafter the better part of a month ago.
Not sure what precisely is the cause but I imagine lacking water is the issue since we’re having very hot days and are still in a drought, although it weathered much more severe drought earlier this year no prob maybe the sheer heat pushes it over the edge. It was planted in the fall of last year so some but not a ton of time to build up the roots (which were also probably jacked up from curling around in a pot up until then anyway although I tried to gently break up the binding of the root ball to itself when I replanted it). I have been giving it supplemental water but if it’s doing this I imagine not enough.
Is it possible to bring a pine back from the brink when its already in this state by making sure it gets water every day or would you call it hopeless at this stage? Anyone have miracle stories? … if not, honestly I should try to get one of the plugs for it at a small stage if I need to try again so that it can grow the taproot properly instead of having to fix a messed up one… just sentimental because this is one of the first plants I tried to put in so I want to save it if I can but it’s following a trajectory I saw before.
12 replies
It's a goner. Conifers like pines aren't as cavalier about shedding their leaves as broad-leafed trees are. So while those can sometimes recover from leaf dieback like this, a pine only looks like this when it's basically dead.
Some tips for the future: ensure soil around newly planted trees remains consistently moist during the first year, especially during hot weather. Remove plants and weeds around the base to avoid competition with roots. Replace with a thick layer of wood chip mulch to protect the soil from the elements.
Try to get better stock if you can. In my experience pines aren't great at recovering from malformed roots that grow in containers. This is one of the reasons people don't plant them too often anymore, since they're not very tolerant of modern nursery practices.
Yeah… I didn’t apply a mulch layer around it and I didn’t clear the competition around it unless it was approaching the height of the tree which were mistakes compounding on the root being messed up. Still watering it but I’m going start looking into where I can get a little one in a plug instead of a potted version. Apparently most plugs are bought in bulk with minimum orders of a few hundred or a thousand near me but I’m not looking for quite that many haha
edit: I can actually get individual ones for $3.50 apparently so that’s cool
Sorry I don’t have an answer for you. While I appreciate your struggle, those long leaves grow like weeds around here and they’re so messy when they grow up I can’t help but have negative thoughts towards them.
They do look like cute little Cousin Itt clones when they’re young though…
Good luck 🍀
Thanks for the luck! That’s actually exactly sort of what I’m looking for. I want to help out the native plants so I can get all their weird insects and also the critters that eat those insects. So if it is native, grows easily and makes a lot of material that supports critters then that’s all gravy for me, and longleaf pine is a keystone species for the area too.
Ex. I also have partridge pea nearby which I think is also given the side-eye for being messy and just springing up, but it’s like a caterpillar factory for cloudless sulphur butterflies and has had a ridiculous number of bumblebees all over it.
I don't have the answer, but I think everyone here is pining for that plant to survive.
@Nautalax looks like it's infested with insects at the bases of the needles. These insects are fluffy and hard to recognize.
If you get the pine clean, it may survive
If I'm wrong about the bugs, forgive me, I cannot blow the photo up enough to be certain
Hmm I will investigate further as there’s light! I was meaning to clear out some of the plants surrounding it anyway to reduce competition so I should be able to get a better picture up close.
@Nautalax the easiest way to determine if you have bugs is to take a kleenex and remove some of the white stuff. Looking closely, do you see tiny green bugs under that stuff?
If so, get some dishwashing soap, dilute it a bit, and see if you can wash and rub the little buggers off. You will need to repeat this process until the plant is clean, and then you will need to watch to see if they come back.
I took a closer look and didn’t find any insects munching on it, even when I moved the straw aside to look at the bark. Though while I was out in the yard I did see that the persimmon fruit was being attacked by a ton of stink bugs so I was able to use that advice there. Thanks!
Happier days back when it was pushing up a fresh candle 😭
If it gets sufficient care, maybe. That doesn't mean water every day, because you could easily drown it.
I would just be ready to get a new one if it doesn't make it.
That gives me some hope so I’ll do my best! I think it would be more or less functionally impossible to drown that particular one because I have a sandy soil that drains quickly and it’s on bit of a slope too. Great soil for discouraging fungal rot but unfortunately not so much for retaining moisture, at least in the top couple feet. A bit better further down than that where the increasing amounts of plinthite/ironstone and clay do a better job of holding onto moisture for adventurous taproots to suck up.