Also in Facebook https://www.facebook.com/john.matel/posts/10211094185892165
Looking through some old photos, I found the one on top from spring 2012. You can see the little longleaf pines. Most of the bigger green clumps are not trees, just other plants. The second photos is a close-up of one of the pines. The last two photos are familiar, since I posted them a couple weeks ago. They show the same places last month. So they have been in the ground a little more than four years, but five growing seasons.
Longleaf have not been common in Brunswick County for many years, so our trees are sort of a test. My trees are northern variety, but not Virginia native longleaf. It would be nice to have “real” Virginia trees, but being “native” is overrated. The environment is similar on both sides of the border. USDA hardiness zone 7b encompasses Southside Virginia and North Carolina more or less to the Neuse River. Trees grown from seed sourced from that part of NC are indistinguishable from Virginia natives. Anyway, if they grow well the next generation will be Virginia native.