Urban Yamadori - ASH

[Marc]

Hi all, a few weeks ago I mentioned some Ash trees growing around a regular suburban carpark. Three really took my fancy, so I went along and prune back quite savagely these three in preparation to dig up at some stage. Here are some pics. The difficulty will be the width of the dirt bit between the concrete, really it is only about 50cm accross or so, so getting in and digging a decent root ball up will be tough.

Now I know the best time to dig them up will be during winter... However, can I wait that long... ? Not sure....

Each of them have good qualities. They all have bark that is starting to split and fissure, GREAT. And I love their autumn colours, what a great tree. For bonsai I think they would make an excellent addition. Great bark, great autumn colours, they produce seed pods, wonderful.

The one with the bent trunk is about 1.2m tall at present, chopped from a good 2m down. Trunk right at base currently about 20cm accross. (pics 05,6,7)

The little one (pic 04), as you can see is just little, but seems very nicely proportioned...

The other, straight up with a fork (pic 03), is currently about 1.2m tall, chopped from about 2.5m, trunk about 15cm accross at the base.

[daiviet_nguyen]

Hi Marc,

I also understand that they shoot back fairly readily too?

Good luck with this project. And please update the progress too

Regards.

[Marc]

Hi Daiviet, I know they are a tough tree, they've been planted around the streets of Melbourne for years, recently being replaced by a less resilient tree, the Plane Tree (stupid city councils !!). The ash seems to survive without much water, or else they would have died off all over Melbourne, but as a deciduous tree they need water of course. There are parklands around me with ash that would be getting so little water, however, they seem to bounce back every year.

So I guess from this that they are quite tough, and do sprout quite readily, if looked after. At this time of year, I think there will be a little new growth coming out of these cut back trees now. I left several places on the stumps with buds that could sprout, so fingers crossed they do to help the trees stablise over the coming weeks/months.

I'm looking forward to them, i don't have any ash at present, so these will be my first.

[anttal63]

OK MARC good finds, the fact you are preparing for it should make it a piece of pie. if the situation allows you could put some river pebble around the trunks, that should encourage some fiberous roots closer in and quickly in time for the lift. other than that i dugm and choppedm out all with a horizontal, flat, sharp pick. then clean cutm hopefully leaving some roots and they dont need that much. best time in my opinion mid - late - july. mix 50/50 scoria or river pebble with fine shred pine bark mulch. they do need to be larger trees to accomodate the proportions of compound foliage. in melbourne you can safely defoliate them twice a growing season, beginning dec and late jan. some people defoliate them 3 times, i would suggest a very healthy tree or/ and enough experience with their nature. good luck i cant wait to see them out.

[Marc]

Sad day today. I noticed during the week the car park these babies are in was surrounded by cyclone fencing and some bulldozers were parked in there. So this weekend I had to dig, or risk losing them. So up i went this morning. Took the spade and some large containers to do the job.

went up with the kids and started to dig. OMG. The root systems were so large, i dug and dug and dug and not a millimeter of movement at all, in any of the three. to make matters worse there is a small irrigating pipe running through, about a 50cm gap between concrete slabs and thick thick roots.

So, after half an hour, i gave up. no go at all. i didn't want to kill them, and I could only go so deep from each side before realising it was no use. They were obviously quite old and so there must be very deep and established tap roots.

So, i am home lamenting what could have been... bugger.

There is a railway line past here where there are squillions of ash growing from seed from larger trees, alas the road there as well is quite heavy with traffic and houses, so do not want to dig there.

back to the drawing board....

[Asus101]

Should have cut the roots and lifted. Desert Ash are tough.

[Marc]

Yeah, i've been thinking about it all day.... might head back there. jsut there was ZERO movement in the trunk when giving it a good hard yank in the ground. Says to me i'll need an axe or a bob-cat to get it out!!

we'll see.... damn shame to hafta give up on them.

[stymie]

Excuse me sir, May I see your permit to collect from the landowner ?

[Marc]

Have I ever lied to you??