New Guinea Privet - group planting

[The Surgeon]

Hi all

Just looking for some advice on group plantings. I have never done a group planting before. I picked this up yesterday from some guy selling potted plants from the road side. This one it pot bound with thickish roots coming out the drainage holes. The tag on the tree says New Guinea Private. Also has "harmful if eaten" printed on the tag

Before I chop I'd thought I'd ask for advice on group plantings. Tips, tricks and pitfalls to avoid. Slab or tray type pot?

Most trunks are very straight past the 30cm height mark but there are a few interesting trunks.

Thanks in advance for the help

[The Surgeon]

Apologies, photos didn't upload from phone??

[shibui]

General guidelines for good groups include:
* Trunks should vary in thickness and height. Groups usually look best when thicker trees are also taller.
* Make the spaces between trunks different. We have a tendency to plant trees at regular spacing which makes the group look like a park rather than a forest. If you leave most of the clump as it is there will probably already be random spacing.
* Trunk shapes should be in harmony. If the main tree is straight then the others should also be relatively straight. If the main tree is curved, other trees should echo that curve to look good.
* Largest tree will usually be slightly to one side of centre (left/right) and slightly behind the mid line (front/back). Smaller, thinner trees will usually be around the edges and back of the group to give a sense of perspective (distance). It looks like you may need to move some of the trunks to achieve something like this with your group. You might also consider trying to strike some cuttings to use as extra small trees to pad out this group in the future.

[The Surgeon]

Hi All thought I'd just update this one.

There was no chance of getting this one out of the pot by conventional methods. I started with a hand saw cutting about one third off the bottom of the pot - straight through the plastic pot and into the soil. But to no avail, something hard in the middle. So I upped the anti with my trusty reciprocating saw. And this is what I found.

unnamed (5).jpg

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Although the top of the pot looked like individual trees, they have either been shooting from an original tress or they were separate trees which have fused under the soil.

Long story short - I managed to separate into 13 individual trees. However in doing so I had to cut and dismember the lot which left about 2-3 cms of the 'subterranean' portion of each tree with each one have very few fibrous roots. My initial conclusion was that this was not going to end well. I decided that instead of trying to construct a group planting from the outset, they need to go into a grow pot. I chose a shallow tray to encourage shallow flat root system.

Happy to say I have 13 trees shooting! 100% strike rate!!
FYI - once separated I soaked them in seasol for 6 days replacing the solution every day. Then dusted with rooting hormone powder before planting.

group.jpg

Please note each tree had to be wired in as they were unable to stay upright with almost no root structure.

This is a shallow drip tray I grabbed from Bunnings and drilled about 1000 holes in it. The tray measures 800 x 350mm. The tallest tree is 750mm and the smallest about 200mm. Needless to say they wont stay that way and when established will be pruned heavily I expect.

In addition, to this success, I took the following cutting as it had some nice movement. Also subjected to the same seasol treatment then dipped in rooting hormone gel and then wrapped in seasol soaked sphagnum moss. To my delight - also shooting.

Cutting starting to shoot.jpg

When i bought this lot, the guy selling also had another he threw in for a few bucks. I don't have any pics of what it looked like when i got it, but i really liked the root structure.

Interesting roots.jpg

So, there is an update for you. Not really sure what I'm doing, but thanks to Shibui for tips on arranging a group planting, which I will revisit next spring.