Korean Pine tree growing tips?

Hi all,
I was wondering if anyone had any first hand experience with growing these trees and any tips.
I’ve ordered a few to plant in the spring on my (mostly) fir and spruce forest land.
Thanks!

Hi Donald,

I have 2 from Agroforestry.co.uk in my Hamburg Kleingarten.  They've been in a fairly shady, boggy spot for about 5 years.  When I put them in, they were about a foot tall, and now they're about hip-height.  The spot has killed everything else I've planted there except a couple of Oregon Grape, which are also pretty stunted*, and Korean Pine are supposed to grow slowly, so slow growth isn't a great shock.  I protect all my new trees with chicken wire guards, and the trunks are still thin enough that I keep those on, and I note that any new growth outside gets nibbled back to the wire.  I don't even have deer to worry about, so I'd suggest some healthy protection for several years.

My understanding is that they won't produce nuts for decades, so for me they're just interesting specimens.  What are you looking for from yours?

*and grass.   So much grass.

Well to be honest I was hoping to get some nuts to harvest within 10 years or so, that and to have an interesting tree to look at. I aim to have many different kinds of trees on our land, as I a olive trees and I now have the opportunity to fulfill one of my dreams 😃.

I may have been mixing the time to nut production with that of the monkey puzzle tree. (An elderly neighbor has just planted one, I assume just for the looks, otherwise he is very optimistic...)  This page http://www.hardyfruittrees.ca/catalog/nut-tree/korean-pine-pinus-koraiensis-a-must-for-cold-climate says 10 years or so.  It also says growth explodes at 5 years.  Which would be inconvenient for me for where they're planted.  Oops.

My nursery is offering Korean Pine trees this year.. small ones, 1-2 ft. I've heard recommendations to inoculate with soil from a white pine forest to improve growing speed. Or to graft onto white pine roots.

I ordered four of these trees, so I plan to go find a grove of white pines and grab a handful of soil to add to the planting sites. I'm still unsure where to plant, my book says they grow anywhere from 30 to 150 feet. That's quite a range, and if they start slow, then it's going to be quite a wait.

Update!
The Korean pines I planted in 2021 are doing very well! They have doubled in height and I suspect that this year they will shoot up as they seem to be well established.
Most of the trees I planted on my property so far have done well, so well that all the ones I didn’t protect attracted attention from the many, many deer that walk through and they ate all of the trees that I didn’t protect. I thought that if there was enough browse that they would leave them alone. Lesson learned.

I planted tiny Korean Pines in 2020. They were sick and yellow when they went in, but greened up by the end of the second year. Still pretty small though. Most of them are doing better now, although I did end up transplanting some of them 2 years ago when plans evolved. I took the opportunity then to innoculate with some fungi stranded litter from under my spruce trees and all the transplants are doing well. My experience so far is that the conifers take about 3-4 years to get established and then they really start to grow, so I'm hoping for maybe 8 inches this year? I gather they like damper climates, so you may want to take that into account when choosing a location.

One of my Korean Pines at 4 years old




Pointing to the growing tip 'candles'