COLLECTING IN THE SUBERBS
Posted: September 30th, 2017, 10:36 pm
Hi Everyone,
I thought people new to collecting might find this helpful
About a year ago I found a juniper I thought worthwhile to dig up as a future bonsai.
The suburban block was baught by developers from a man I new from childhood. This was after
his unexpected death I later found out. At first I though he moved out but when I heard he passed away
well it just became more important to save a tree from his house if possible.
When I tried finding the present owners all I got from local council and real estate people was,
"we would like to help but we can't give out that information"
Anyway it seems it's owned by a company that's a branch of another company,
that's a seedling of some corporation, bla, bla, bla. Not being very good with authority myself,
I quickly gave up on that approach.
Instead I kept driving past until I found the first neighbour at home and that's when I heard what happened to
the owner. When I told him what I wanted to do he was very helpful, especially being anti-development.
For a little while I thought he may even offer to dig it for me, well almost
quote; you want to dig that and put it in a pot, are you serious???????
yes,a bonsai pot but do you think the other neighbours will mind since I can't find the new owner?
quote; best bloody way to know is lets go ask they probably hate em more than me
So it turned out the other neighbour had actually planted the tree for the gentleman 15 or more years ago.
Both home owners thought it a bit unusual but still a good idea, they even wanted me to save more trees but
the others were huge so I settled for the juniper and maybe one more depending how fit I am next week.
So the tree was growing against a fence and bottom leant at about 45degree which is what looked good. The rest grew strait up.
Being a bit eager to get to digging and needing more equipment than I usually keep in the van I ran home. Also left the
phone so didn't get a pic of it in ground
Went back next day to at least get a shot of the hole we made.
Sometimes difficult digs are good for the material. In this case a concrete drive next to fence a post in concrete at
one side kept rootball fairly small since the good soil was all on that side. Basically I thought it would
be a nightmare to get out but instead 2 of us had it in the car in one hour, that's a collecting picnic in my book.
The picture shows the hole with the post left on top, as a reminder of favour I did them.
You can see on one pic how small and clean the roots were made, nearly bonsai pot ready.
I have lost a few trees by reducing roots after the tree recovers so will not bother doing that again.
I read a good quote here from KCPOOLE. Where he points out that doing the root reduction right of on collected
or nursery plants makes more sense because you don't waiste time and energy on a tree only to loose it at first repot.
That made good sence to me and has worked well this far with my last year of collecting.
Thanks Ken
I'm confident this juniper will do well too so am starting this post
to show its journey.
hope you enjoy my pics
cheers
I thought people new to collecting might find this helpful
About a year ago I found a juniper I thought worthwhile to dig up as a future bonsai.
The suburban block was baught by developers from a man I new from childhood. This was after
his unexpected death I later found out. At first I though he moved out but when I heard he passed away
well it just became more important to save a tree from his house if possible.
When I tried finding the present owners all I got from local council and real estate people was,
"we would like to help but we can't give out that information"
Anyway it seems it's owned by a company that's a branch of another company,
that's a seedling of some corporation, bla, bla, bla. Not being very good with authority myself,
I quickly gave up on that approach.
Instead I kept driving past until I found the first neighbour at home and that's when I heard what happened to
the owner. When I told him what I wanted to do he was very helpful, especially being anti-development.
For a little while I thought he may even offer to dig it for me, well almost
quote; you want to dig that and put it in a pot, are you serious???????
yes,a bonsai pot but do you think the other neighbours will mind since I can't find the new owner?
quote; best bloody way to know is lets go ask they probably hate em more than me
So it turned out the other neighbour had actually planted the tree for the gentleman 15 or more years ago.
Both home owners thought it a bit unusual but still a good idea, they even wanted me to save more trees but
the others were huge so I settled for the juniper and maybe one more depending how fit I am next week.
So the tree was growing against a fence and bottom leant at about 45degree which is what looked good. The rest grew strait up.
Being a bit eager to get to digging and needing more equipment than I usually keep in the van I ran home. Also left the
phone so didn't get a pic of it in ground
Went back next day to at least get a shot of the hole we made.Sometimes difficult digs are good for the material. In this case a concrete drive next to fence a post in concrete at
one side kept rootball fairly small since the good soil was all on that side. Basically I thought it would
be a nightmare to get out but instead 2 of us had it in the car in one hour, that's a collecting picnic in my book.
The picture shows the hole with the post left on top, as a reminder of favour I did them.
You can see on one pic how small and clean the roots were made, nearly bonsai pot ready.
I have lost a few trees by reducing roots after the tree recovers so will not bother doing that again.
I read a good quote here from KCPOOLE. Where he points out that doing the root reduction right of on collected
or nursery plants makes more sense because you don't waiste time and energy on a tree only to loose it at first repot.
That made good sence to me and has worked well this far with my last year of collecting.
Thanks Ken
I'm confident this juniper will do well too so am starting this post
to show its journey.hope you enjoy my pics
cheers
