If you’ve thought about growing a pine tree by sprouting a whole pine cone, don’t waste your time and energy because unfortunately, it won’t work. Although planting entire pine cones sounds like a great idea, it isn’t a viable method for growing a pine tree. Read on to learn why. Can I Plant a Pine Cone? You can’t plant a pine cone and expect it to grow. There are several reasons why this won’t work.
The cone serves as a woody container for the seeds, which are released from the cone only when environmental conditions are exactly right. By the time you gather cones that fall from the tree, the seeds have probably already been released from the cone. Even if the seeds in the cones are at the exact perfect stage of ripeness, sprouting pine cones by planting entire pine cones still won’t work. The seeds need sunlight, which they can’t get when they are enclosed in the cone.
Also, planting entire pine cones would mean the seeds are actually much too deep in the soil. Again, this prevents the seeds from receiving sunlight they need in order to germinate.
If you have your heart set on a pine tree in your garden, your best bet is start with a seedling or small tree.
However, if you’re curious and enjoy experimentation, planting pine tree seeds is an interesting project. Although sprouting pine cones won’t work, there’s a way that you can harvest the seeds from the cone, and you may – if conditions are just right – successfully grow a tree. Here’s how to go about it:
Harvest a pine cone (or two) from a tree in autumn. Place the cones in a paper sack and put them in a warm, well-ventilated room. Shake the sack every few days. When the cone is dry enough to release the seeds, you’ll hear them rattling around in the bag.
Place the pine seeds in a resealable plastic bag and store them in the freezer for three months. Why? This process, called stratification, mimics three months of winter, which many seeds require (outdoors, the seeds would lie buried under pine needles and other plant debris until spring).
Once three months have passed, plant the seeds in a 4 inch (10 cm.) container filled with a well-drained potting medium such as a combination of potting mix, sand, fine pine bark, and peat moss. Be sure the container has a drainage hole in the bottom.
Plant one pine seed in each container and cover it with no more than ¼-inch (6 mm.) of potting mix. Place the containers in a sunny window and water as needed to keep the potting mix slightly moist. Never allow the mix to dry out, but don’t water to the point of sogginess. Both conditions can kill the seed.
Once the seedling is at least 8 inches tall (20 cm.) transplant the tree outdoors.
Pedro Martin Ureta’s Forest Guitar Tree It is located in Argentina and is composed of 7 thousand trees planted by a man in tribute to his late wife, for the love and versatility his wife had for music and guitar, the man worked years to create this work of art in nature in memory of the deceased wife. Credits: IG Marco Guoli
Argentine farmer Pedro Martin Ureta created the cypress and eucalyptus tree forest as a memorial to his wife Graciela Yraizoz who loved the guitar
She wanted to design it herself but died before it could be created
Graciela tragically died in 1977 while carrying their fifth child before it could come to fruition.
So, after her death, Mr Ureta and their four children planted every tree individually to create the stunning wood.
The guitar stretches for two thirds of a mile and is so large that it has to be seen from the sky but Mr Ureta has never seen the full design because he is afraid of flying.
He started the project in 1979, two years after Graciela died. She suffered a ruptured cerebral aneurysm during her fifth pregnancy and died aged just 25.
Graciela first suggested the idea after flying over land and noticing that a farm looked a bit like a milking pail. Their son Ezequiel, 43, said his father was too busy at the time with work to take her plans seriously.
However, after she died Mr Ureta said he regretted not fulfilling her wish. Daughter Soledad told the Washington Post: ‘He used to talk about regrets, and it was clear he regretted not having listened to my mother about the guitar.’
He had no experience in planning a vast project of this nature, and so he taught himself through trial and error.
She said once they started the project all the children including elder brother Ignacio and sister Maria Julia, would line up three meters apart and plant the trees where they stood.
The family used cypress trees to create the star-shaped sound hole and the outline of the instrument and planted rows is composed of cypress trees to form the strings.
According to Conde Nast Traveler, his early attempts to get his newly planted forest to thrive were unsuccessful.
They had to replant the saplings many times because they were eaten by hares and wild guinea pigs. Pests specific to the harsh terrain of the Pampas attacked the young trees, destroying the saplings and setting the project back considerably. However, Ureta persevered, developing an ingenious solution to the problem. He surrounded the saplings with scrap metal, dissuading pests and allowing the trees sufficient room to develop.
Maria Julia, 46, told the Washington Post: ‘It was the closest thing possible to having my mother alive.’
Mr Ureta, now 77, who also has an 18-year-old daughter with his second partner Maria de los Angeles Ponzi, has never seen the full scale of the forest from the sky, he has seen the pictures.
Ureta himself is now a local celebrity, and his unusual creation has been reported all over the world. The impressive guitar-shaped forest has drawn international attention over the years. NASA has even captured footage of it using the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (or ASTER)
“Contrary to popular belief a crone is not a postmenopausal or elderly woman who has sagging breasts and has outlived her gifts and purpose. More than at any other time in history, women are redefining what it is to be a woman in the various phases of life. Women at and over fifty are now a gorgeous force to be reckoned with; earning more than ever, more educated than ever, and poised to inherit a vast portion of the world’s wealth, their opinions matter. Intensely.
Today’s Crones (the younger Baby-Boomers) were yesterday’s Hippies and Flower-children. They held a vision of an entirely different world order; one based in peace, equality, and social justice. In their youth they sensed a rightness to living in alignment with Nature and as equals to the men they loved. Many of them made bold experiments in returning to the land before the word ‘sustainability’ ever came into vogue. The Crone is the wise-woman who has crossed the developmental threshold that marks her “a woman unto herself.” The Crone dusts the red dirt of the world from her feet and begins her real soul-centric work. The Crone has grown wise and potent enough to chart an inward course that takes her to the center of the world where she finds her authentic self in total communion with Life. She is then able to bring those gifts back and offer them to those around her.
Yesterday’s Hippies and Flower children are today’s Crones who are poised to bring to fullness and finish the work they began decades ago. Their sheer number, earnings potential, and feminine wisdom is a movement waiting to happen. We are conscious not only of the Feminine Principle, but of the wisdom held en masse by all the bold, beautiful, and savvy girls in The Sixties who have now come of age as crones. It isn’t a moment too soon. Welcome back to a second youth, now rightly understood for the glorious thing it was always meant to be. Edveeje: TreeSisters Goddess of Operations
The old hag at her cauldron is perhaps the most enduring image of the Wise Woman and a remnant of a time when women were the healers of their communities. They were shamans, witches, midwifes, medicine women, and priestesses of the Goddess.
The Crone is a symbol of inherent wisdom that comes from experience. She has lived through love, sorrow, hope, and fear, coming out of it all a wise and confident spirit. Through these experiences she has learned the secrets of life and death and of the mysteries beyond this world. She has tasted death itself and watched those she loved make the journey before her. It is through her mourning that she faces death, grows to understand it, and becomes the gatekeeper between worlds.
The wisdom of the Crone comes only after learning the lessons of non-judgment and compassion. Through these lessons the Crone becomes the balancing scales between light and dark and between life and death. She is selfless, yet she loves herself. She is kind, yet she knows when to be harsh. She is free, she is compassionate, and she is wise. Only the Crone can complete the journey to the Otherworld and birth the Child of Completion.
The Crone is full of power. Her body is no longer fertile, but her mind is sharp and able. She no longer bleeds, keeping her power within her and owning it without shame or fear.
She is often seen as a healer, working in tune with Nature to cure ailments and guide those ready to leave or enter this world. She is the elder priestess of the Goddess; the Grandmother whose words are few yet priceless in their wisdom.
In myth the Crone is often seen as something to be feared. She is a representation of death and its mysteries. Things that are unknown are always feared, thus we work to know the Crone; to understand her wisdom and beckon her to impart the mysteries upon us. We surrender our fear and ignorance to the Crone and let her strike these overpowering influences down as a stalk of wheat with her shining sickle.
As with all aspects of the Goddess the Crone is not only found within the aged. She is in all beings at all times. She can be present in men and women, young and old; though age may very likely come before her lessons are fully realized.
The Crone is a cleansing force that sweeps through the world carrying away those whose time to live is done to make room for new life. She is associated with the element of water and the direction of west – land of the dead. She is the necessary force of destruction like the force of a wave on the shore; ripping away the beach and returning it to the sea from which it came.
She is the reaper, the comforter, the mysterious old woman who possesses the knowledge of all worlds. The next time a thunderstorm passes overhead take a moment to listen to the voice of the Crone. Feel the tears of joy and mourning fall upon your head and take the first steps to understand her mysteries.
1.) I will be mindful, living in the moment and fully aware of my surroundings. I will not dwell on the past or worry about the future. I will focus on what I am doing while I am doing it. I will attune myself to the world around me, the most powerful source of magic, strength and wisdom. The sky above and the Earth below, the Moon and the trees, all have wisdom to impart.
2.) I will treat others with respect and I will practice compassion. I will try to remember that there is a spark of the Divine in each and every one of us, and that we are all worthy of respect and kindness. Patience and compassion for others at difficult times can have a profoundly healing effect, on others and for ourselves.
3.) I will be good to myself. I will treat my physical metabolism with the reverence it deserves, honouring this singular, magical vessel with the best offerings available, good healthy food, fresh air and clean water, pleasant surroundings and happy activities such as meditation, rambling in the woods, yoga, Tai Chi, ecstatic dancing, singing, chanting and laughing. I will remember that happy and ecstatic experiences have great healing powers and that my body is as much a part of my magical work as my mind is.
4.) I will learn to accept and love myself, and in so doing be healed. We did not choose the families we were born into, and we did nothing whatsoever to deserve any physical and emotional abuse meted out to us as children. No matter what has been said about us, we are good and beautiful spirits, worthy of love and acceptance. I choose the path of healing, and I shall begin that healing by learning to love and accept myself.
5.) I will be good to the planet. The Old Wild Mother is strong and forgiving, but we have treated Her and Her creatures badly and our shabby thoughtless treatment is straining Her ability to heal Herself. She needs our assistance and our love more than ever, and we can help Her much though environmental and animal activism, simplifying and recycling, organic gardening and conservation. We can spend our money carefully and use it to vote “NO” to pollution, pesticides, factory farming, strip mining, excess packaging, and the plundering of the wilderness and Her creatures. We can make a difference, and it is one of the most magical things we can do.
6.) I will try to live cheerfully with my medical condition, to be joyful and to learn any and all of the lessons which my illness may have to teach me.
7.) I will be tolerant of other beliefs and open to other beliefs. In the words of Morgan in The Mists of Avalon, “It is all one”, and all life-affirming paths to the Divine are valid. I will not proselytize; neither will I criticize or judge the religious paths of others. I will be open to other teachers and belief systems, and I will share what little wisdom I have with others if they ask me to do so.
8.) I will remember that a life lived simply is beautiful. I will not worry about possessions, and I will rejoice in the natural beauties around me, the fragrance of flowers, the sound of the wind in the trees, the taste of wild honey, the companionship of my clan and my animal familiars. From time to time I will do magic as the village wise women and healers of old did it: without robes, tools and complex preparations, but with a profound connection to the earth and deep respect for all that moves on it.
9.) I will learn to rest in the arms of the Old Wild Mother and let it all go. I am a part of the glorious eternal dance, the great cosmic cycle of life, death and rebirth, and I have nothing to fear. I will live my life quietly and with great joy, whether that life be short or long.
10.) Finally, I will express myself. From time to time, I will spontaneously break into ecstatic dancing and howling at the moon. Once in a while, I shall feel free to be stubborn, curmudgeonly and downright obscene. If it is required for any reason, I shall also feel free to kick butt.
“I am the silence of Midnight, and Black velvet skies. I am the shadow of vision that tempers your eyes.
I am the darkness of secrets that draw the veil thin, coldness of winter that shakes on your skin.
I am Grandmother, Weaver, Enchantress and Crone, The Knowledge of Justice that strikes at the bone.
Destruction is mine when its time comes to be; Death to the living, who all come to me.
Mine is the hand of the spinning of fates, Mine is the passage between life’s fragile gates.
I am the giver of magickal sight The slight sliver of waning moonlight.
I am the branch of ageless worn trees. Hear my voice and know of me!
I am the Raven that flies through the woods – black silken wings opened up to the sky! Bearer of closure, competition, and truth – Dreamscapes and Banshee am I!
Mine is the wisdom that comes in the dark. Mine is the dying that calls to your flesh. Mine are the hidden remains of your heart. Mine is the mist that will take your last breath.
Give unto me what is old and outworn, And I will return it with new life reborn.
Give me your sorrows, your sadness, your grief – And in the dark hour, I will give thee relief”
I am the giver of death and rebirth – Mine are the last things, before they are first.
See me in shadows, and in the dark sea. I am the Crone! Hear my voice and know me!”
Tree Weaver 