AusBonsai

Back from the week end dig. and have all 3 Mels in grow pots, Need another day to clean up the mess
I removed the grass from the top of the root balls and soaked them in a seasol mix for 2 days Mel 1 & 2 root balls retained the soil and will work the original soil out over 2 or 3 repots You have to have the camera on hand and remember to take the Pic. missed mel 1 root ball Mel 3 The root ball fell apart in the seasol soak, So made a mix of 50 /50 mud and Bonsai mix and packed around root ball then filled in with bonsai mix I now remember the first tree I collected (but lost in a watering system failure) I left the grass on the root ball and only removed after the tree became established, another option would be to rap the root ball in heshion? then soak in the seasol mix.
All I can do now is tuck them away out of the frosts and wait for spring
Will update mid spring regardless

Milo

Thanks for posting, I will watch with interest. This goes well with the current topic of digging Australian natives.

I concur with Watto! Please keep all successes/failures (not that I wish you any) posted so we can all learn from them!
Cheers
Elmar

As my first collected tree from my brothers farm was successful I thought just dig them up bring them home and into a training pot but No its not that easy.
I now remember I dug it from an area that remained wet all year and had a lot of roots close which made it easy to dig.
I had planed to separate the 2 smaller trunks but lost the plant due to a watering issue ( it's always a favorite we loose)

All the collected trees in the first post were collected on higher dry ground and had long tap roots .

After losing them all I was at a loss with what to do. With lots of googling I found a u tube vid of and American doing a talk on collecting from the wild.

As well as saving as much roots as you can and keep moist was to spay the branches with Cloud cover and wrap in a garbage bag to keep moist till the roots can resupply

I found a substitute (heat guard) and ordered online but before it arrived I read an article in the Geelong Bonsai club newsletter about using sugared water to spray on the leaves.

So with my Brother telling me the farm was being sold I thought I'd have one last go.

As the D9 had been though to clear all the Burgan weed (kunzea ) the leptos and Melaleuca's were gone too.

After checking the dam I found mels all around the dams edges and some in the water with lots of roots close to the surface.

So fill the back of the car up again (could only fit three in ) this time with my garbage bags and sugared water spray

The 1000 Km round trip makes it a epic dig.

It was early winter and not the best time , now Sept would have been better But their still alive.
As they all had seed from last year. I now have seedling's coming up in any pot near them so in a year or two I'll have some for the sales table.

Milo

They look nice .
Hope this one goes good int he long term

Ken

Big effort Milo ,hope you get some great results. Interesting information in regards to the sugar water spray. I take it that people have had good results using it ......Cheers John.