Collecting a Liquidambar root with suckers

[Jake C]

So ive been driving past this huge old Liquidambar which has been cut down in someones front yard as it was in danger of falling on the house or hitting power lines. The original tree was about 60cm in diameter and there are some suckers growing up from a large root a few meters from the main stump. The root its self is around 20cm at its biggest point and the new suckers growing vertically from it are 2 meters high. Today i dropped in and had a chat to the owners and they are happy for me to remove it This clump has alot of potential to become something great, but i dont want to kill it by rushing to dig it up, i would apreciate some advice before I do anything. I will get some photos up soon.

[anttal63]

jake it might be too late now??? you could do this no prob late winter or whenever most dormant for you guys up north. if you have no choice but to collect now. defoliate and collect. cutting the main root, give yourself some distance for die back and make sure you have the right size container to pot it. leave the top section where the suckers are coming from exposed, not submerged under soil. good luck mate.

[Jake C]

Thanks for the reply. If the section I am going to collect has alot of its own roots do you think it will have alot better chance? I will go there tomorrow and have a dig around underneath and take some photo's. Im not forced to collect it now, the alternative is to let it grow until next winter, prune it and try help it to establish its own root system by periodically severing the main root on each end.

[aaron_tas]

hi jake,

my advice is to style it in the ground, and dig it when it's most dormant.

[MasonC]

yer. i agree. Get it as healthy as possible in the ground, and then dig it up in winter. I've done the same thing with some elms and i did it in winter and they worked beautifully.

[Jake C]

here are the photos.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/ ... re085s.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/ ... re086s.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/ ... re087s.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/ ... re089s.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/ ... re091s.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/ ... re096s.jpg

[Jamie]

airlayer the crap out of that mate !
why get one tree when you could have ten, the airlayers would be all of good size and give you some great starting points to work with. then after you have all the air layers think about getting the root with suckers, its a bit big to style in the ground as suggested, i would be getting a few trees of that one mate!!
nice score!

regards jamie

[Jake C]

hi jake,

my advice is to style it in the ground, and dig it when it's most dormant.

yer. i agree. Get it as healthy as possible in the ground, and then dig it up in winter. I've done the same thing with some elms and i did it in winter and they worked beautifully.

Cheers for the advice, while it is tempting to dig it up now and take it home I know it will have much better chance of survival if i wait till next winter. I Have collected similar but not as nice material last week so it will be interesting to see if that one survives. The liquidambar in my area have been in leaf for over about 6 weeks now, I'm told they are tough like a trident so maybe they will tolerate the poor timing?

I will leave the big one in the ground and focus on developing alot of new fine roots, problem is im unsure of the best way to achieve this I need a plan of attack but because I've never collected anything like this before i dont know the best way to go about it, any advice is welcome

If i sever each end of the large root will growth of the trunks slow dramatically? Im thinking i should let it grow and concentrate on the trunks first, once i get them close to how i want them I will cut the main root and hopefully start developing a new root system. Should i sever the main roots in stages, maybe first cutting through the end that feeds the main (cut down) tree? Will it be helpfull to try replace some of the soil underneath as the ground has alot of clay.

[Jamie]

i would say that the tree itself ( the suckers that have grown so much) would have a reasonable root system of fine feeders underneath as it is. it looks very healthy too. like i said before though, i reckon ya air layer it

[Jake C]

airlayer the crap out of that mate !
why get one tree when you could have ten, the airlayers would be all of good size and give you some great starting points to work with. then after you have all the air layers think about getting the root with suckers, its a bit big to style in the ground as suggested, i would be getting a few trees of that one mate!!
nice score!

regards jamie

Allways an option but there is alot of other material i have acess to if i want individual tree's. Coming across something like this isnt common so i would prefer to make this one a raft style forrest. It allready has some nice size trunks so i think it would be better to use whats there rather than cutting them off and starting again. I agree it's a bit on the large side but i live only a few minutes drive from it so i can keep a good eye on its progress.

ps. thats a 600ml coke bottle in the photos not a 1.25

[Jamie]

fair enough mate, thats your decision im just thinking your gonna be chopping it down to a certain degree any way, why waste? just my opinion mate

nice find:D

regards jamie

[Jake C]

fair enough mate, thats your decision im just thinking your gonna be chopping it down to a certain degree any way, why waste? just my opinion mate

nice find:D

regards jamie

I see your point, theres probably 2 trunks that are worth layering, how long do you think it would take?

[Jamie]

shouldnt be too long mate, 3 months maybe? im not quite sure i have never layered a liquid amber mate. im sure someone will put there thoughts in that have had experience with it

might not even be 3 months, might be only 6 odd weeks, depends how strong it is i think.

regards jamie

[Jake C]

well I decided not to layer, the biggest trunk is only about 3cm at the point to be chopped and rather boring. I dug some soil from around the large root and found some smaller feeders but they were few and far between. I made some cuts underneath with a sharp knife and dusted some root hormone then filled the soil back in with some new organic soil. Hopefully some new roots will have grown by the time i dig it up next year

[Jamie]

good idea mate! the more roots and feeders you can get up with it the better chance you got