AusBonsai

Hi all

My neighbor has kindly agreed to give me a juniper growing in his garden , it's a prostrate type appears to be a chinese juniper of some sort as i saw needle and scale foliage on it. the trunk is about 10 - 12cm diameter at the base so it's quite an old one. I need some advice on digging it up as this type of material doesn't come along every day and I don't want to mess this up . Is this a good time of year to dig it up and how much root ball do i dig up, I don't have the option of planting back into the ground so what would be a good soil mix to plant it in when i put it into a planter box ( my thoughts were 30% diatomite , 30% pumice and 40% graded orchid pine bark is this a good mix ) should i build a green house type thing over it when it's in the pot and how often should i water it . thank you for any advice given and if anyone knows anything else i should do as well please let me know

kind regards
peterb

Peter,
I think your mix is OK. If you have to dig now, dig. But if you wait another couple of months the success rate will be improved. I've dug a few and of course you will need to collect a reasonable amount of soil with it but because you are close to the dig site transportation etc will be fine. In my opinion they need a good two years to recover and after that they will be fine.
Good luck

PS - forgot to say water with a seasol solution, it helps!

I dug up a few Last year and documented the process here viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12673

They went into full sun and Diatomite / Zeo0lite mix and all survived except 1 with little roots.

Ken

peterb wrote:Hi all

My neighbor has kindly agreed to give me a juniper growing in his garden , it's a prostrate type appears to be a chinese juniper of some sort as i saw needle and scale foliage on it. the trunk is about 10 - 12cm diameter at the base so it's quite an old one. I need some advice on digging it up as this type of material doesn't come along every day and I don't want to mess this up . Is this a good time of year to dig it up and how much root ball do i dig up, I don't have the option of planting back into the ground so what would be a good soil mix to plant it in when i put it into a planter box ( my thoughts were 30% diatomite , 30% pumice and 40% graded orchid pine bark is this a good mix ) should i build a green house type thing over it when it's in the pot and how often should i water it . thank you for any advice given and if anyone knows anything else i should do as well please let me know

kind regards
peterb

Hi Peter,
The advise Watto has given is good. Do you have to dig it now or do you have the luxury of saying when you would like to dig it up? The best time would be late Winter to Mid Spring.

When the time comes to dig give the tree a couple of buckets of Seasol for two days before digging. After digging keep some soil around the roots, as Watto has mentioned. If you have some hessian or reasonably open cloth, wrap the roots ball and soil and soak in a tub of Seasol for a couple of days.

After transferring to your grow box give the tree a drink of Seasol a couple of times a week. When you start to see good recovery you could introduce liquid fertilizer like Charlie Carp and Powerfeed. With these liquid fertilizers I alternate between the two.

Make sure the tree is very securely planted. It must not be able to move with the wind. It will take some time for the roots to establish and the tree be able to support itself.

Please keep us informed how you go with this project.

Regards Ray

Hi All
thank you for the advice , glad I asked for advice as I would have dug it up now , i have the option of digging it up whenever i want so i will follow the advice given and wait for the right time, this gives me time to prepare everything and have it all ready , i'm so stoked about this juniper really don't want to mess it up. It's been raining all week here in adelaide so i wasn't able to take fotos but as soon as i can i'll post some fotos

regards
peterb

hi guys
here are some fotos of the juniper, wouldn't mind if some one could identify it . The bottle next to it is a tooheys extra dry for comparison. please excuse the quality of the fotos
kind regards
peterb

Make sure you get plenty of root when digging these up keep it in it's natural dirt in a styro for a year then repot it will be fine all my ones I do are just feed them aswell march is good up here if I remember correctly