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

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