I'm a complete beginner to growing bonsai, or any plant for that matter. I bought a planted set of seeds of Japanese Black Pine Tree.

The seeds were planted fairly shallow, some were even on the surface of the soil. The instructions said that this was fine. What's puzzling me is that my seeds have started to give a green stem out, and the stem is now about an inch and a half for one particular seed, and the seed is on top of this stem in the air!

Is this the way it's supposed to be? Aren't the seeds supposed to remain in the soil? If there's something wrong, how do I correct this?

I'm hoping for a quick reply as I'm getting a bit paranoid about the fate of my seedlings! Thanks in advance

Kartiek

I can't wait to see leaves. I'm waiting for this to happen so that I will then start shifting them to a proper pot.

I think I'm beginning to see some needles start to come out of the seed.

The only problem is that the needles are slightly yellow at the tip, and curved. This is probably a sign of bad health. Am I watering them too little?

Most of my seeds have now been discarded and the little plants are almost 4 inches above the surface. The soil depth itself is just 3 inches (it was a really shallow and small container I planted all of them in- literally 2 inch radius, 3 inch deep).

Now I'm looking to transfer them to a bigger pot, one for each. My problem is threefold - a) I'm not sure if this is a good thing to do because the plants are so young and perhaps their root structure won't be too well developed?
b) I'm not sure if I can even let them continue in this cramped space anymore! c) If I do decide to transfer them to pots, there are still certain seedlings that have to discard their seed or are just too small. Is it a good idea to still remove all of them and replant now?

Thanks!

How many seedlings are there in the 2 inch radius. That is pretty tight. If you repot you will loose some. If you don't you will loose some. I would just get a bigger pot with good well draining soil mix and put the entire mass of seedling in that bigger pot. I would let it grow for another month or two before dividing.

Anyone else with other ideas?

What I realized today as I repotted them is that even though they have grown slender and tall (4 inches or so), the actual roots are only 2 inches at best (they are after all only 2 and a half weeks old) Anyway, I've repotted them all in a separate pot of their own, I drenched the soil with water, the pot has lots of holes at the bottom, so it should drain out really quickly. I read that this is a good thing to do when repotting these plants. I don't have fertilizers so I haven't put any.

I really hope that they adjust to their new environment. Anything I can do to improve the chances of them surviving?

Thanks again!

And do not stare at them. Just kidding. It is tempting to do something but frequently disturbing them is not good.

Do not fertilize them yet since you just repoted. Let them recover. When I do something like this, I like to put them in tray with a high dome cover and under lights. Just keep them damp and not wet. The dome holds on to humidity. Once they are showing more signs of growth I gradually wean them away from the humidity dome. At this time you can give them a very dilute version of a fertilizer. Eventually, you want them to get used to outside too. Again you can do it sort of gradually. Pines do need to be outside as soon as it is feasible. Freezing at this stage can be harmful. Once they are established they should remain outside.

If you want to know more about fertilizers, head off to the container forum and look for a post by 'tapla'. In fact read all his excellent articles and digest them. This will keep you away from staring at those pines.

I had 8 of them growing before. I think only one is not looking healthy, I think it's going to die, but the rest will survive.

They've taken well to their individual pots, and some have continued their rapid growth. They got great sunlight yesterday and the day before and that really helped. Spring can't come any sooner here in Boston!