AusBonsai

I know I don't need any more trees, but when you get the opportunity to dig I think you shouldn't say no - just in case it turns out to be a champion. One of the guys at work is doing a bit of landscaping at his mom's house and needed to get rid of a camillia. His discreption was "its a reasonable size" and would I like it?
The answer was yes and around I went to get/dig it out. My knowledge of camillia is that they like certain growing conditions (shady position, acid soil etc) and that they have a shallow root system that really needs a good mulch to keep them healthy. With the "shallow spreading root system" firmly in my head off I went with what I thought was all the tools I needed to get the job done.
When I got there the "reasonable size" was certainly correct as it was about 3 metres high by about 3 metres wide, but a few cuts had it down to about one metre high, and now manageable.
Now onto the digging. I certainly underestimated the difficulty factor. There were few shallow spreading roots, but many large roots and most of them went straight down. After about two hours on the site we had to call in stumps and made arrangements to return the next weekend to finish the job. First lesson - camillias have very large roots, second lesson - camillia wood is very very hard.

A week later and we were back at it. This time we brought some "muscle" in the form of an electric reciprecating saw - a hand saw for old fellas!
Again what we thought was going to be easy turned out to be a little more difficult, and I think its beacuse of how dense the wood of a camillia is. As we used the saw to cut there was a deal of smoke coming from the hole, but there was no fire.
Anyway, it did come out.

This tree is more than 38 years old and when we got it out it weighed more that 40 kg, but in the van it went and off to its new home.
First job was to soak it in a seasol bath for a few days (that's probably to let me have a rest more than anything) and then the potting process will commence. In the last photo you can see the trunk and it is about 30cm wide, so plenty to work with.

You clearly have a lot more room than I do Watto!
What an effort! I'm tired from just looking at your photos!

What a friggin beast!

Thanks folks. I had to drink that beer just so I could get the size comparison photo, trust me!

Watto,

I honestly think it would have taken me a carton of beer to do what you have done.
Look forward to the photos of progression.

WOW nice find.

Regards
Rae

Watto, this is going to be the biggest bonsai camellia ever! It's going to be a very amazing 'journey'. Best of luck with it
Cheers Rod

Rae - I might have had a couple more, but just to replace the lost fluids.
Rod - it will be a couple of years until real work commences but hopefully it will fully recover and be ready to work then.

That's a stump and a half Watto! I really hope it survives.
What are your thoughts on collecting at this time of the year?
Regards,
Steven

Steven, there were two choices, now or never so I took the option to give it a go. It will be placed away from too many frosts and given the best aftercare I can give it.
Hopefully in a couple of years I will be able to commence work on it.

It will survive Watto. I collected one at the same time except i had an back hoe on site. The tree is 50 plus. it is growing happily in my garden and maybe i wont Bonsai it. We will see. Yours might be a large flower as camillia's normally are, so it will need to be a large Bonsai.

bodhidharma wrote:...Yours might be a large flower as camillia's normally are, so it will need to be a large Bonsai.

I think he's got that covered!

Crikey, what a beast!! Love it mate. And I love Camellia

Hey Watto, With a bit of a snip and a tuck, this could be your entry for the next shohin competition!