Pinus strobus 'GOLD PAINTED'

White (Weymouth) pines are very popular for their soft needles which you want to touch over and over again. They are usually long, silvery blue-green and come in whorls of 5. Trees of this pine can be large and dwarf, wide or columnar. This one is a 2009 introduction from Stanley & Sons Nursery in Oregon, USA, and brings an extra colour - yellow needles.

Gold Painted is unique white pine with enchanting foliage colour. Its soft, evergreen needles emerge rich banana yellow, or to be fair - most of them. Later, some of them mature to medium green while a large portion remains yellow all year round. They are 8-10 cm long, and grow in whorls of 5. Yellow needles can be prone to sunscorch during too dry summers in the first years after transplanting, so make sure it has enough moisture.

It grows fast into a tall, broadly pyramidal tree. Its natural habit can be thin and somewhat leggy, however, if you spend a little bit of time on it every spring it can develop into a superb and immensely beautiful conifer - just prune all new shoots (so called candles) by a half in May. It will get much denser and will remain shorter which will enable you growing it in a small garden, too. Because even though Gold Painted pine is too new to tell its ultimate height it is expected to be not much less than the species.

Pines like sunny locations and well-drained, sandy soil, they usually do not require fertilizing unless they suffer from chlorosis in which case magnesium and ferrum-based agents should be used. They are practically maintenance-free. Extremely hardy to about -40°C (USDA 3).

Last update 10-09-2018