AusBonsai

Last week I discovered a Chinese Elm sapling growing at work. Looked around and ended up collecting three Elms, and two nice plump junipers that were not wanted in garden beds.

But today, I discovered a BIG elm (7cm) trunk and BIGGER Hackberry (10cm+). Both had been cut down and probably poisoned but are now very well. Need a good deal of growing to get taper, but lots of potential and amazing size. I have permission to remove them. I need some advice on collecting these species. Am I best to wait till they're dormant? Does anyone know any good articles or resources on how to dig up biggish trees? No info on this in the books I own. I'm afraid that going at it with a shovel would result in completely dead trees before long and these two have great potential.

thanks

DR

If you can leave it until they're dormant, it's certainly safer. I've heard that in an emergency, you could cut back hard and defoliate, and create a false dormancy, but I can't guarantee that it would work. Best of luck,

Gavin

Hi DR
Best time to Collect is Late winter.
If you can leave them till then will be best, and if so I would run around the trunk ( bout 1 ft or so out), with a spade to cut some of the bigger roots now. they will then back shoot and power on till winter and then you can collect.

check out the wiki for some hints and links https://www.ausbonsai.com.au/wiki/index. ... e=Yamadori

Ken

Gavin thanks! And Ken, as always thanks for the advice. I should have checked the wikis there is some good information there. I can prepare these trees now and dig in winter. The only danger is if someone decides to hack them down and poison them again, but i'll try to prevent that.

I have a big Weeping Fig collected from a friend's garden a couple of years ago that's really struggling. I think I removed too many roots, and should have done some research on how badly this species suffers from dieback. Hopefully it will recover, but don't want the same result with these two i've just spotted.

Thanks again,

DR