Nice! Good strong growth there.

Just for information, the tree ~30' behind just to the left is Honeylocust at ~22' tall. Tree ~70' behind to the right (on the lawn) is ~12' tall Pondcypress, which grew 3' this season. If you look at the farthest, upsloping background ~300' away & beyond my lot, the tree just right of the top of Honeylocust w/the whitish crown (undersides of leaves showing) is Cucumbertree, between dark Sugar maples. Yellow in the background is blooming Goldenrod.

Update: It's still growing slightly -- 43 inches now. Only Dawn redwood has more growth for a conifer here, 4.5 ft+.

Hardwoods here like Tuliptree, Osage orange & Honeylocust grew 6' this season.

Hi beng: Thanks for posting the update on your LLPs. I'm curious - how long ago did you plant them?

I read that when the root collar is about one inch in diameter, they begin to put on height. Since I planted the first LLPs seedlings this year, I don't know if that's accurate. Recently, I noticed a little brown object that looks like a button on the top of several seedlings. I don't know what this is, if it is something to worry about. Any thoughts?

Pam, I planted 4 LLPs spring of 2005. These were seedlings supplied from a wholesaler that came from NE Alabama, so-called 'mountain' Longleafs, so hopefully they have a bit more cold-tolerance than typical coastal-plain seedlings. Note that performance is variable -- 2 seedlings are still in grass-stage & small.

The "button" is prb'ly the terminal bud -- hard to see if thickly surrounded by needles. Shouldn't be anything to worry about as long as the needles look green & healthy.

And yes, mine developed terminal buds about 3/4 -1" in dia before they put on stem growth.

Thanks, Beng. I'm amazed that you can grow LLPs in western MD. I planted 100 seedlings from Eastern NC this spring, too many losses. The forester said they are extremely sensitive to provenance, that the best seedlings are from your location. But you are growing Alabama seedlings in MD!

I hope you'll continue to post progress reports. You give me hope!

I am very pleased to see this tree doing well that far north. A very interesting species, I hope one day I could grow it. Well, not HERE, but somewhere.

beng,
I'm very intersted by this Pine, know you a seeds source ?
Clément

Clement, scroll down the page alittle (or look at my link below -- a google search should find the phone#) -- I give the address of where I bought them. The seedlings are from northeast Alabama, so the most cold-tolerant of LLPs. I don't know if they ship overseas -- possible diseases might prevent that.

After a couple average winters, cold hasn't bothered them (-4F, -20C has been the coldest so far), but I fear the day of a significant ice-storm.

Here is a link that might be useful: Longleaf pine stem growth

Forgot to add, the several on-line seed sources for LLPs I've seen are all from the coastal-plain ecotype. I've never found any mail-order seed source for the mountain-region Longleafs.

But the coastal-plain ecotype might do fine in France.