Important Autumn Task: Pine Needle Cleaning

Today is the 9th of October and we call This early Orchard You can see that The pine needles are turning yellow The fruit are ripe The zelkovas are red Maples are changing Color by the day so you can see what is Happening And it's the third time of the year many Of the vehicles have lost their leaves So I'm taking the chance to wear One shirt before it gets too cold so Let me take you around to show you a Very specific job that needs to be done In the Autumn time and that is cleaning The pine needles Come the end of September and October You may not believe it but I get about Three or four telephone calls every day And I get about 10 emails and text Messages saying that all my Pine is Dying because all the needles are Turning yellow But don't despair I have done so many Videos over the years and they're all on The website and yet people will still Not believe that this is quite normal For Bible look at this great big point This is a very old point if you see the Thickness of the trunk This is supposed to be a 150 Old Point I Imported it from Japan in 2007. and I'm Still in the process of wiring and Dewiring and look at the needles every

Autumn you get all these needles like This And most people would think that this Point is dying And this is not the only one let's move To any other point The Black Pines don't have such a Problem this is my old black file They have some needle drop from the old Needles but it's not as pronounced as The five needle or the Japanese White Pine look at this tree for instance This is a massive great Victory and look At it look at it Absolutely covered with yellow needles And let's go to the commercial trees Whenever we get a chance my colleagues Here will clean the needles on the Pines So this one is in the process of a big Pain this has been cleaned This has been cleaned but there are Quite a few that have not been cleaned So you see the difference between the Ones that have been cleaned and the ones That have not been clean look at this This was done only two days ago and it's As good as new absolutely as good as new But if you don't clean the needles That's what it looks like So this is what we're going to do and I'll show you it's not rocket science It's very very simple so I'm going to Get Steve to show you how to do it Now if you come here and look look at

These needles here And a few cones obviously we need to Check if there any seeds in yet to serve But this amount of needles came from Just one point can you bring that pine Tree Steve because I want to show you How much comes out of just one tree that Is what comes off this one tree so I'm going to show get Steve to do Another one And we will show you the exact process Of how it is screened so We usually put it on a wheelbarrow these By the way are the white pine seeds and They germinate very pretty so all he's Doing is running his fingers through no Need for using tweezers or whatever How long do you think it takes five Minutes about five minutes And this is the best time to do it about October time But because we have so many trees we Continue doing it right up to early November too But Autumn is the time to clean the Needles up So it's just rubbing the needles off And whatever you do don't be a uh you Know tempted to take the tree out and Repot it and cut the roots this is not The time of the year to do it you've got To wait till February in which to do it [Music] So let's remind you again it's the

Second and third year needles that drop So each year they produce new needles And again if you prune the candles off Or just putting the tips of the green The trees do butt back Wire D [Music] So why Steve is doing it And let's come back Talking of the different types of wine It's most pronounced on the Japanese White panel the five needle Pine the Black Pine don't suffer so much and Neither do the scotch part let's go to This area of the Blackboard you see this Is a batch of black coins Japanese black Pinestone burger and they don't have a Lot of needles cost on this And the same with the scores Point The Scorch points have some leaders that Shed Not Let's see this subwoven into the hardly Any broad needed on this one So it applies to most of them that is a That's just cause fine as well [Music] This is a five needed wine so this is It's quite old So there you go This is a rather rare variety of five Needle Pine and it's called a variegated Five needle Pine because if you look

Carefully at the needles it's green and Yellow and it's predominantly yellow so It's a lovely golden color so this has Been cleaned so they also shed the needs And look at the brown needle on this So this is just a question of Cleaning the needles taking the needles Out and it will be as good as this one This one has been clean that one has Been clean these two still need to be Cleaned So don't forget to do this task and for Goodness sake please do not ring herons Bonsai asking me what to do with the Pines because your Pines are certainly Not dying let's go back to Steve and see How he's getting on [Music] Understand Here we are And then just about five minutes Steve Has cleaned one tree [Music] See you again This amount of needles have come from Two parts So it's good as new There you go So this is part of the process of Cleaning the Autumn needles that Especially Happen with the white pines the other Pines like the Scotch Pines and the Mugle Pines are not so prone to shedding

Their old needles so here we have Steve And Tracy cleaning a pine which is going To a customer And in case they think the tree is dying We're just going to clean every single Needle off with The tools are using are little tweezers You find that is very useful to Take the needles off And look at that wheelbarrow full of Yellow needles I always remind people that when you go And walk in a Pine Forest what do you Find on the forest floor fine needles so If you see pine needles on your white Pine Do not panic look at the needles here Look at the needles here Uh that one hasn't been cleaned yet This one has been cleaned What a difference it makes Like new And yet if you look at ones which have The yellow needles on you think that the Tree is dying Lovely time of the year [Music] Foreign