AusBonsai

If some natives were being taken from the verge of a forestry road (with permit, of course), what is the recommended aftercare to give them the best chance?

Should the foliage be reduced, because there's probably a reduced root mass to support the top, or should you leave the leaves to feed the roots?

TIA

Assuming there were fine feeder roots and a root ball , leave them intact as much as possible leave the old soil intact. Prune the top back leaving some foliage 10-60%. pot it up in a container that is the correct size to fit the root ball. Use spagnum moss pumis, akadama. Or any good inorganic substrate. Use about 20% chopped spagnum. Maybe some mini bark chunks. Then put the tree in a semi shaded spot keep the humidity as high as possible in a green house misted. Or put a black plastic bin liner over it with a hole cut in the top.

If there was no fine feeder roots collected I wouldn’t think a native would survive. The roots on the tree you want to collect could be deep down. And the chances of collecting most native trees successfully are very low unless they are growing in constant damp soil or a serious amount of prep work is done before hand.

This is what I would do. Bearing in mind I have only ever successfully collected one tree in my life and that was a hawthorn. I’m gona collect a azalea tomorrow from a garden.

Do you know what species we're talking about? Some are going to be much more tolerant of getting dug out than others, and some will require different aftercare.

They would be Nothofagus cunninghamii, Tas myrtle/Southern Beech/Myrtle beech. They grow ok as bonsai down here, and apparently can be dug successfully.

Thanks for the recommendations Paulneill.

I've had plenty of successful native transplants where I kept very little native soil and roots were reduced a lot. Soil can lead to all sorts of problems in pot culture so I believe it is better to get rid of it early and go straight to a well drained bonsai mix in pots.
In my experience the greenhouse is not such a good idea for natives. Not sure if it is too hot or too humid but many just refuse to sprout in there. Best success is when the transplants are put on the ground under or beside the benches so they get some shade and protection while they recover.
Don't worry if leaves drop. That is usually just the tree balancing water in and water out.
I generally keep transplants on the damp side. Just a bit dry and they don't do well. Some species do even better if the pot is in a shallow tray of water for recovery period.
I have usually reduced the branches to compensate for root reduction but there is a growing school of collectors who find that leaving growing tips to feed new roots gets good results.
I have not had any success growing nothofagus up here so can't give any first hand info for that species but I know they do quite well in Tassie and respond well to bonsai techniques.

Good luck with these. It would be great for the rest of us to have some photos and follow up progress reports if possible for the records.

Thanks for the input Neil, very much appreciated. I'll certainly report back with some progress updates.
I've got them potted up and sitting in a shaded spot. A couple of them I only reduced the soil slightly in sections where there wasn't any roots, but the others I removed a bit morr of the soil/clay/rocks.
One was gravelly soil (a lot of which fell away), the others in heavy clay. I dunked them in a bucket of seasol for a few minutes, which softened the clay and helped the excess come away.
The trip back home was in the back of a ute where they were enclosed on 3 sides, the back and top open. On two of them the youngest leaves and tips ended up a bit shrivelled and wilted.

I'll see how these go, and what I can learn for the future. They were roadside trees, some cut/snapped/ driven over in the past, and likely to happen again in the future if they stayed there.

So far, 4 trees (or 6, depending on how you define a separate tree) are still looking pretty much like they did the day I got them.
Its looking like I'll lose one, with all of the foliage drying out badly
I'll keep it watered in case it revives. I've heard of them coming back from the dead, but its demise was so rapid that I'm not holding my breath.

A couple of the others have the odd dry leaf on the tips of a couple of branches, but otherwise look well hydrated. I set up a couple of mist jets to come on and blow over them while I was at work the last couple of days when the temperature and wind were up, to reduce transpiration losses.
The bronze coloured tips are juvenile leaves, not dried leaves. This angle doesn't really show off its curves This one has a thick, snapped off trunk with some deadwood. A branch low to the base has been bent down, and two new saplings have shot up from it. I figured it was best to remove it as a whole, and when it's recovered I can decide whether to separate or leave joined.

Updates on these 5 trees, after 18 days.

4 are doing pretty well, 1 is dead. My first "bonsai" loss.

The dead one:
Scraped back some bark today This one died rapidly and within a few days. Its treatment wasn't any different, but it was dug from a different type of location: growing out of a steep bank, probably around 70°

This one has done really well so far, mainly just the leaves on a few wispy twigs on top dried out

Tree 3:
This one lost just a couple of tip leaves.
Additionally, the older leaves close to the trunk have gradually turned orange and started to fall. Is this colour change a common occurrence? The other leaves near the tips that died went straight from green to a pale off-white colour.

I suspect this one will be fine.
It also has some small purple dots/dimples on some leaves, but these were there before collection and I suspect are caused by some sort of insect pest?

Tree 4:

Some branches have dried up, but a lot iare fine. The angle of the first shot makes it look worse than the reality

Tree 5:
Doing well. Some older leaves starting to go green/orange mottled.

Congrats, so far so good.

Shame about the dead one but 4 from 5 is pretty good!
The one that didn’t make it looked to be the thickest trunk/oldest?
Not sure if this has something to do with it...
Thanks for the update.

The one in the foam box is similar thickness at the base, but in the past was snapped off lower so has a shorter trunk.
The size may very well be a factor, and I guess would probably be reflected in root size too. Maybe I missed some of the roots.