Being the non-coniferous guy that I am, I have no idea what this pink things are, but they do make for some good color. The whole plant, actually, has a great variety, with this pink, the light green new growth, and the blue green older needles. I may have to become semi-coniferous if this keeps up.
...and a little closer
They are male (pollen) cones. The pollen will be shed fairly soon; after that, the cones will wither, and drop off in a month or two
Resin
See, and I would have called them pink nubules, and their purpose was primarily to cause curious humans to touch them. Once touched, the pink nubules would undergo a metamorphosis into a bagworm bag. Later in the summer, the bagworm bag discharges a million icky worms that devour the conifer and look gross. The gardener, horrified, vows never to grow anymore conifers and plants zinnias instead.
Scott
"Pity the Fool" who plants Zinnias instead of trees!
Some pines (Pinus pumila shown here) really have attractive staminate cones.
Guy S.
Resin is the premier pine expert that I have enountered! I would trust Pine-Resin's (AKA Resin's) word.
Yes they are pretty and interesting..................can I spray for the nasty worms that will come later? They are yucky! But I do love the plant!
Nikki, he was just funnin' ya. Decrepit does that occasionally, when he's not outside making love to his Carpinus or playing with his camera. That Delinquent should be ashamed of himself, misleading us all like that just for laughs! Just tell him to beware the Ides of March -- you know what I mean.
Bagworms don't come from staminate strobiles. But they seem to appear out of nowhere, so it almost seems like that's what happens.
Guy S.
Don't they damage the plant? Here's mine, don't know the name, but it gets lots of worms, and they kill some branches.
Thats a Mugo pine, and they get sawfly larvae. I have not seen those beasts on my Swiss Stone pines.
Can I spray them with something? I just dug up the creeping juniper that was under it..........uuuhhhhg. Those were some serious roots. It was getting brown and sparse looking. I hope I didn't damage the Mugo pine Now I'm afraid for my beds where I planted two blue star little junipers last fall. Are they going to take over my beds like this guy? I want to keep the pine healthy and my beds.
Nearly anything will kill sawfly larvae. That is, except for the one thing that you would think would be most effective and least hazzardous to use: Bt. Even though they look like caterpillars, sawflies aren't Lepidopteran so Bt has no effect on them.
The main trick is to catch them early while they're still small. If you go away for a long weekend, the tiny larvae seem to grow overnight into eating machines that can strip your pine.
Guy S.
Kevin - Those are pine nuts. (ducking and running)
Thanks Guy .........My brother's name is Guy...........not a whole lot of Guy guys these days. What about the star Juniper? Will it be a monster over the years?
I spray sawfly larva with a mixture of 16 oz, 70% rubbing alcohol, 16 oz tap water and 1 TBL of Ivory dish washing liquid. Put this mixture in a spray bottle and mix well. This is a contact-spray so you need to hit each larva to kill it. This mixture kills the little beasts almost immediately.
Two days ago I I had to spray my P. m. 'Big Tuna' and P. 'Jane Kluis' to kill the nasty beasts. My 'Big Tuna' got hit by rabbits last winter and now by the sawfly larva. It looks bad and I may need to take the plant out and replace it with something else less attractive to the local fauna.
Mike
Thanks soo much......I have started using alcohol in my seedling water to keep away the fungus gnats.
I have a small True Fir. And 2 years ago the sawfly (?) larvae started and in 2 days almost defoliated the whole thing. I crushed them one by one by one by one bye one and each presently living one heard its littermate die in agony. Yes!
