AusBonsai

OK, so I went back today and collected the Juniper I spoke of here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17091 . Here is the story.
I first flooded the tree with water to help reduce the dehydration. It was also misted on the foliage about 4 times while digging with a seasol solution. First thing was to remove some branches so I could get into it (it was about 3 1/2-4 mtrs across. It took just under an hour to trim and prune it back to a manageable size. As I have never collected anything this size I wasn't sure how much foliage to remove but had to get it manageable and remove all the dead needles.
It then took around 3 hours (with some breaks)to dig and remove. My transport option failed so had to drive home 1hr borrow a mates ute and go back and pick it up. After I dug it out 95% I back filled it and watered well while I got the ute. I then returned, dug out the soft soil and bagged the root ball before loading onto the ute. Now loading a tree with a foliage still 2 mtrs wide and a root ball weighing well over 150 kg is a struggle at the best of times, but when its only me and my 10 yr old daughter it is a real effort, would not have done it without her. It is now home in a bath of seasol soaking for a few days before being potted up. It only just fitted into the bath too
Unfortunately because I watered it and with getting it into the ute I lost more dirt of the root ball than I wanted. We stopped once on the way home to spray the foliage which was covered by a cloth to try and reduce dehydration. It will now be misted every day with seasol and watered well. Now it survives.
Do to this being my 3rd attempt to post as it comes up "cannot display page". I will post this over several entries so I don't have to retype everything if I loose it, so more to come

Josh

I will get some better photos of it tomorrow. Do you think I have removed enough/to much foliage. I will let it soak for 2 days now then pot it up. I was thinking of using a 50/50 diatomite/pottin mix blend I use on my other trees, would this be ok.
Anyone got ideas on direction or styling...just kidding it will sit for a year to recover (that's me recover ) then I'll look at it. Now to get it to survive.
Hope you enjoyed my dig

Josh

WOW!!! Epic dig josh looks like you have got lots of roots. Fingers crossed it survives
Looks to me by saving the bark on the tree by not pulling it out with the ute you have lost a little bark off your hand due to all the digging hope you are enjoying a well deserved beer and rest after all that.

Jac

Mate this deserves to live just because of the battle you both had!

Hi Josh , mate you seem to be laying down on the job a bit If this doesn't survive then I'll give up collecting tree's .Cant see any issues with this approach , did you collect the skyrocket in the yard as well . Look forward to some more pics .

Cheers Alpine

My Vote goes with Alpine, No reason this will NOT be a total sucess
Excellent dig

Ken

mugen wrote:WOW!!! Epic dig josh looks like you have got lots of roots. Fingers crossed it survives
Looks to me by saving the bark on the tree by not pulling it out with the ute you have lost a little bark off your hand due to all the digging hope you are enjoying a well deserved beer and rest after all that.

Jac

Thanks Jac, I wanted to look after this one. The blisters will heal...eventualy

Isitangus wrote:Mate this deserves to live just because of the battle you both had!

Jasmine worked as hard as I did. She did a great job and made things easier for me. I think she is hoping when I die she gets this tree left to her lol.

alpineart wrote:Hi Josh , mate you seem to be laying down on the job a bit If this doesn't survive then I'll give up collecting tree's .Cant see any issues with this approach , did you collect the skyrocket in the yard as well . Look forward to some more pics .

Cheers Alpine

You know what they say " all rest and no play.... They wanted to keep the skyrocket. Jasmine eyed it off and wanted to dig it cause it was her size The trunk has lovely red coloring to it. very happy with this find.

kcpoole wrote:My Vote goes with Alpine, No reason this will NOT be a total sucess

Thanks Ken, not having dug anything like this before I was hoping I was doing the right thing. I will be looking after this one now in its recovery.

Josh (and Jasmine).

Ps. Julie (my other daughter) was the photographer. She not into the whole bonsai and digging thing but did a good job of photographing the dig
Excellent dig

Ken

Hard work. I think this is a Cyprus; Cupressus macrocarpa 'Greenstead Magnificant".

Wimmy

I remember it well and can relate to the struggle. Well done on not being tempted to tow it out I think it will power and look forward to the day it goes into its final Bonsai pot.

wimmy wrote:Hard work. I think this is a Cyprus; Cupressus macrocarpa 'Greenstead Magnificant".

Wimmy

Thanks Wimmy, I think you could be right. It's not the name I was calling it while trying to load it onto the ute though

bodhidharma wrote:I remember it well and can relate to the struggle. Well done on not being tempted to tow it out I think it will power and look forward to the day it goes into its final Bonsai pot.

Thanks Bodhi, I thought about it but it was reasonably easy digging once the ground was wet so figured it was better for the tree to dig the whole way. It barely fitted in the bath so finding a pot will be fun. I haven't even considered telling my wife what that will cost

Josh

So I got it potted up after soaking in seasol for a day or two. I didn't have anything big enough so I had to make something. Now to let it sit and recover for a year.

Josh

PS
Dimensions are
Foliage 1700mmx1500mm.
Tree is 800mm from soil to top of foliage.
Trunk is 200mm-250mm

Good effort on the Dig Josh,

I envy you finding material like that, it looks to me you have an excellent starting point for a future Masterpiece.

If I may offer some advice to assist in recovery, given you have said you have some very hot weather on the way, personally I would reduce as much of the foliage as possible. I do not mean remove branches that may be needed in future designs. At this point I would keep every branch that has foliage in order to give as much design flexibility as possible. I would however spend a good deal of time selectively trimming each sub branch and branchlet back to the first foliage (closet to the trunk). This will reduce respiration loses on the tree and you can therefore also reduce the amount of watering required which will reduce the possibility of root rot.

It has been my experience in the past that trees which have an imbalance between root mass and foliage mass in favour of exess roots will recover quicker, the reduce foliage mass will also let more light into the internal structure of the tree , this coupled with the imablance of root mass may even promote some back budding.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

cheers,

Jeff

How much foliage could you safely remove? I have heard of general rules like not removing more then a third off a juniper at a time. This is a great post by the way, well documented, impressive tree and some serious effort going into the dig. I look forward to more photos in the future!