Alpineart's Blog

This is the next batch removed from the terraces , some have had more trimming than the others as i was going to remove them last year . The trunks size and overall shape is quite different , my plan is to remove as many as possible , collecting the better trunks before time runs out . Not having the best of health this was not a planned exercise but but a fly by the seat of my pants challenge . I have potted down some of my Phoenix Grafts  in order to have a supply of bigger pots to slip these into .The junipers needed a re-pot so its is working out well . These 4 wont require much work to bring them up to a suitable standard  unlike some of the multi leader / trunk specimens but at the same time who’s in a hurry . They were in the ground for 17 years with no plans to remove them , now the fun starts , turning these into some very impressive Bonsai  after some more of these beauties are removed .

Cheers Alpineart

This is 1 of 30 Azalea’s that i will be removing from the garden and into pot’s tub’s or what ever i can get them into .I planted 75 different varieties almost 20 years ago and now with plans to pack up and move on i will remove the ones that  have the quality required for good bonsai .Starting with he largest trunks until i exhaust my pot supply i simply collect enough to keep me occupied over the Winter months .Growing in Clay and shale terraces these are easily removed and have exceptional root masses .Most of these were trimmed annually into globe shaped plants for the floral display using garden hedge trimmers . On average most are trimmed to around 1000mm x 600mm , not all have good trunks ,  this specimen has a base around 250mm x150mm , the main trunk is 60mm , on average around 30mm .Plenty of movement more so from the side .This may remain as a group planting or could be split into 2 x 2 twin trunks .The root mass after removal was around 750mm x 600mm x 100mm , so it was reduced even further to fit the 650mm x 450mm tray, over kill for this but not wanting to reduce too much running the risk of killing the plants . It will grow on until i make the final decision as to where i take it . With this trainer potted its onto the next removal , along with some trimming of the tree’s that missed out over the last 5 months . All these Azalea’s were purchased as 3 year old pot plants for the tidy sum of $1.50 . I will continually tip prune these to begin the rebuilding of the canopies for the floral display in the next flowering season or two .

Cheers Alpineart

This has been my greatest challenge ever , collecting these Junipers before they were ripped out by the local council . A tip off from a friend in the Parks and Gardens presented me with a huge challenge and a battle of whits in a matter of  10 minutes  . These were to be ripped out by the council and run through a chipper . I received a call at 6.30 am stating if i wanted to save these junipers i had to at my expense remove them in 6 hours , by 7.00 am i was on my way with a hired mini excavator from a local operator and the challenge was on , all other safety requirements were met . Unfortunately i didn’t have my 4×4 so a trip to Bright to swap vehicles with the Wife and return to pick up the trailers .I was behind the 8 ball on this one and by the time i arrived 3 of the junipers were damaged , so i whipped out the chainsaw and exposed the trunk line on the remaining tree’s  . Under my instruction the operator work a little more gently on the remaining trunks, 3 trailer loads were recovered or be it saved from certain destruction .The cost was not cheap but worth every penny to have stock like this to work on in the years to come , providing they survive .Its a good time to re-pot Junipers now so i have the timing right , all i need is some cooler weather , 30 degree’s Celsius is mighty warm to rip big material like this out of the ground .With all the 8 tree’s i could gather and 15 or so  ground layered branches safely home they were hosed down continually during the heat of the day .I managed to get 3 trunks and 10 layers cleaned up on the first day with the remaining plants worked over and planted the following day . The 1.5 tonne excavator struggled lifting these out of the ground a 5 tonne machine would have been a better option . I struggled a little myself still recovering with a broken leg that refuses to heal and knit together . This was a 24 hour 2 day test of my stamina , running on adrenalin one would have to say . Now safely in wet grow beds they should recover from their ordeal and grow on to be some of the best collected Juniper material in Australia . These plant’s were over 1 metre high and 3 metre’s in diameter, the root mass on average was 1-1.2 metre in diameter , just a little too big to dig with a  pick and shovel .They were trimmed down to around 1.2-1.5 metre’s on collection and reduced to the minimum and pre styled as huge basic trainers . The bases on these rippers this one was 180mm x300mm most are around  around 300mm plus and most have multi trunks , giving plenty of options if i need to split them into 2 tree’s . I don’t think i want to top this exercise for quite a while .

Cheers Alpineart