About Pinus parviflora ‘Netsuke’: This Japanese White Pine cultivar is a tiny specimen grown from a seed produced by ‘Kinpo’.

This tiny 6 year old Japanese white pine tree, ‘Netsuke’, is a new cultivar of Pinus parviflora that originated from a ‘Kinpo’ seed. Unlike its popular parent, ‘Netsuke’ is a tiny globose bun with less than 1 inch annual growth. ‘Netsuke’ needles are 1/2 to 1 inch in length and have beautiful hues of blue and white. ‘Netsuke’ is a befitting name for this cute little cultivar since it gives homage to the spirit of the craft.

‘Netsuke’ is our second Pinus parviflora cultivar. Our first Japanese White Pine cultivar was a witches broom found at the Yakima Arboretum, which we named ‘Ooh La La’!

About Pinus banksiana ‘Ray’s Random Point’: This interesting cultivar has a random growth habit, discovered as a broom on a Jack pine growing on our neighbor’s property in upper Michigan.

Our Michigan neighbors, Tom & Brenda Ray, owned a lovely property, with an irregular waterfront, with beautiful sandy coves, and granite outcroppings jutting out into the bay. Thus they named their property “Ray’s Random Point”. 

Tom and Brenda lived a long happy life together until the very end when they passed away within 3 days of each other, in early February 2018, both in their mid 80’s. It just so happens that there was a Jack pine on Ray’s Random Point which produced an interesting irregularly growing broom to match their wonderful property! What a perfect name for the new cultivar Pinus banksiana ‘Ray’s Random Point’! We had collected scions from ‘Ray’s Random Point’ that year and we were actually grafting these when we heard of their passing!

About Pinus resinosa ‘Packerland’: This beautiful green and yellow variegated red pine was discovered along a country road north of Green Bay! It was found among a row of Pinus resinosa that appeared to have been planted for a windbreak. We returned on Superbowl Sunday to grab a few scions, along with cuttings of Pinus sylvestris ‘Platinum Ridge’ and Picea glauca ‘Tillie’.

GO PACKERS!

This variegated Pinus resinosa tree also produces beautiful variegated cones! We have a few successful grafts in Michigan that are starting to show their color!

About Pinus monticola ‘Mini Monti’: This beautiful blue Western White Pine cultivar, above, is almost 5 years old, as of November 2020, and currently measures 8 inches in height by 10 inches wide.

This Pinus monticola broom was discovered in the eastern Cascade Mountain range of Washington. The conifer broom photo above is from August 2015. A few branches from the lower part of this dense broom had died, and the brown discoloration revealed it’s location deep in the forest against the green background! We were able to rent a snowmobile in the winter of 2016 and collected scions for many new conifer cultivars, including ‘Monti’s Gold’, during that snowmobile trip.

Pinus monticola ‘Mini Monti’ scions were grafted in February 2016, and, much to our surprise, the newly grafted cultivar actually produced small cones the same year, in June 2016!

Pinus monticola ‘Monti’s Gold’ is a beautiful new cultivar propagated from a Western White Pine tree with golden variegation throughout the entire tree. The tree was discovered at dusk in the eastern Cascade mountain range. We were heading home from a hiking expedition driving back on an old dirt road and spotted a bright flash of yellow in the distance within the forest. Earlier in the day, Cheryl had discovered a beautiful golden variegated Abies grandis (‘Grand Prize’). Mike was determined to find a better specimen as we are both super competitive. He slammed on his brakes and we ran up the hill through the woods with our flashlight. We had spotted the bright yellow top of a fully variegated Pinus monticola tree! We were able access the tree in January with a snowmobile. It was easy to obtain scions near the top of the 20 foot tree since the top was bent over from the heavy snow. Nearly all of the grafted scions pushed! The ‘Monti’s Gold’ grafts are continuing the yellow variegation.

About Pinus strobus ‘Gitche Gumee’, a columnar white pine broom, one of our favorite discoveries! While hiking the beautiful North Country Trail just outside of Marquette, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we spotted a very dense columnar broom on a white pine high on a sandy knoll. This Pinus strobus broom, named from the classic poem by Longfellow, is located along the shores of Gitche Gumee (Lake Superior) next to the “Gitche Gumee” campground! The Ojibwe translation of “Gitche Gumee” loosely means “Big Sea”, referring to Lake Superior. Our friend, Brandon, in Marquette, Michigan, loves to climb trees, and he uses a method where he does not have to use spikes. This adventure to reach and harvest ‘Gitche Gumee’ branches was one of his more challenging Midwest climbs. Near the top of the tree, the broom gets battered by direct winds right off of Lake Superior. Parts of the broom looked freeze-dried from the subzero temperatures in the winter. The winds in this area can be fierce, reaching sustained speeds over 50 miles per hour! Some of the scions looked pretty shabby, but the grafts all pushed beautifully, with a nice blue-green color. And the new Pinus strobus ‘Gitche Gumee’ cultivars are keeping the unique upright columnar growth habit of the parent broom. A bonus attribute is that the new cultivars are producing paired miniature cones. Another interesting white pine broom we found along the shores of Lake Superior was Pinus strobus ‘Nokomis’, also part of Davison Gitche Gumee collection.