Scots pine progress

I took this image this afternoon as I was removing the old needles.

I've been really busy this year and I have only had time for basic maintenance and fertilising. I am unexpectedly unemployed and have time on my hands to spend some quality time with the little trees.

Last year I hurt the pines with being too aggressive with the fertiliser towards the end of the year. They respond very poorly to high PK suitable for flowering or fruiting plants. I remember killing my first Japanese black pine about 15 years ago in Australia using tomato fertiliser - at the time I attributed this to inexperience.

This year I have used Biogold ( cause you can get them cheap now ) and liquid organic fertiliser. As the needles were hardening off I used a bit of seaweed extract as well. 

I took this image earlier this year after the candles had extended and been trimmed.  You can see how the needles have reduced in size as the tree was more relaxed and had enough light gathering ability.

The wine bottle is there for scale.

2 years ago. The tree was growing aggressively and had very long needles.

4 years ago. The poor thing was starving as you can see from all the flowers on it.