AusBonsai

Got a phone call yesterday morning from a Member here, advising me he was on a garden reno job and there was a few old Azaleas being dug out with an excavator, Was I interested?

Hell yeah!!!!!
is the Pope a Catholic?
Do Bonsai trees grow in summer?
Does Ken enjoy a beer?

I could not get there but he offered to take em home for me to pick up.
Just got home form driving further across Sydney than I do for holidays, with a ute full of ginormous trees
Quickly root pruned to get the into the barrow and tubs to soak in Seasol, and will pot them up on the weekend sometime

more pics after potting up to come.

ps, I need more trees like a hole in the head, but hey I cannot resist and it will give me stock to sell at next years market maybey

Ken

Hi kc , great score mate , even better when the hard work is done .

Cheers . Alpine

Lucky bugger. Mates like that are hard to find.

Squizzy

It has been my experience that when you remove all the foliage they rarely come back, here's hoping.

bodhidharma wrote:It has been my experience that when you remove all the foliage they rarely come back, here's hoping.

Never had a problem with any before!
this one was chopped into several pieces and they all survived and thrived
viewtopic.php?f=132&t=9913

In fact got cut back hard last spring to no foliage and recovered nicely.

Ken

Not my experience either Bodhi.
I've collected about 20 from one garden - a few at a time as they extend all the units there. Collected all times of the year but mostly summer and some of them were cut right back to bare wood. Only a couple failed and they sat in the sun for 2 days before I got to them. Another couple that sat in the sun for a few days did survive but they had soil around the roots which may have protected them from drying out.

kcpoole wrote:Never had a problem with any before!
this one was chopped into several pieces and they all survived and thrived

shibui wrote:Not my experience either Bodhi.
I've collected about 20 from one garden

I must not be holding my mouth right as i have a miserable record with these. It is interesting that people do better with certain species and some fail miserably. I have always wondered as to the reason for this

bodhidharma wrote:

kcpoole wrote:Never had a problem with any before!
this one was chopped into several pieces and they all survived and thrived

shibui wrote:Not my experience either Bodhi.
I've collected about 20 from one garden

I must not be holding my mouth right as i have a miserable record with these. It is interesting that people do better with certain species and some fail miserably. I have always wondered as to the reason for this

I am like that with olives, I have never been able to get them to strike roots
I have given up with them in frustration!!!

Ken

I must not be holding my mouth right as i have a miserable record with these. It is interesting that people do better with certain species and some fail miserably. I have always wondered as to the reason for this

I am like that with olives, I have never been able to get them to strike roots
I have given up with them in frustration!!!

Interesting concept. Reminds me at one nursery one of the women always got better strike rates with cuttings. All the others tried copying everything she did but still couldn't match her results. Now why would that be so?
I could never grow azaleas at our last place. I suspect they did not like the highly acid water. Every one just got sick and died over a couple of years. Now it is hard to kill them.
Also hard to kill olives Ken. Maybe you are trying too hard. They seem to thrive on tough love here. On the positive side, not being able to grow them leaves more room for other species You don't need to rub off hundreds of suckers every few weeks either

nice one, looking forward to see what comes out of it.

What a coincidence Ken. Today I noticed the Corrections Victoria outdoor work crew renovating a garden at our local hospital I went in to see if there was anything that might be worthwhile for bonsai
They had removed a number of plants and the supervisor asked if I was interested in an azalea they had just dug out. As you put it:

Hell yeah!!!!!
is the Pope a Catholic?
Do Bonsai trees grow in summer?
Does Ken enjoy a beer?

They had left a fair lump of soil on the roots but were happy to help load it onto the ute.
First photo shows it after cleaning away some of the soil around the trunks. Took about half an hour to get enough soil out to see where the main trunks were and to remove enough soil and cut the roots back to manageable size.
The trunks that were buried are quite solid near the base and came up in 3 distinct clumps. The existing main trunks are pretty straight and stiff and I could not see any harmony between the separate clumps so I decided to split it into 3 sections.
After pruning, sawing and some work with the axe I now have 3 quite nice azalea trunks from this freebie. You can see how woody the base of this one is where I've cut through the roots to separate the parts.
Closer look at the sections I think #2 has the most potential as the trunks are currently. As the tape shows the base is about 10 cm diameter.
I had to shorten a couple more roots but they are now planted into 30 cm orchid pots
that they survive that treatment at this time of year.

Interesting thing I have found with collected olives is that two collected same day and made into slugs will behave differently with one getting shoots and then roots within 6 months whilst another will sit for 12 months + before it shoots then roots. I just leave them alone and check there is still green under the bark on occassions

Very nice score Shibui!

I cut all mine back over the lats few days and got the last ones potted up yesterday.
Took photos this arvo and will post now

Ken

Got photos for them all now they are potted up. i was told there are 3 different varieties in this lot.

as per Shibui, these are all cut back hard to get them into pots. Some had quite thick root bases . stumps that I have cut thru horizontally to reduce the thickness so in a few years potted up they can get into smaller shallower pots, No point waiting to cut them back IMHO.

only 1 of them was a large clump and was cut into 2 sections and potted up separately.

In addition to these lot, i got a very large wisteria stump which has potted upk and hope this one does rot away and a tall Camelia which is planted in the garden to recover for a few years.

Ken

as an Update I am happy to say they are all shooting well
IMHO if they are shooting up the top, then they are most likely to be doing so under the soil as well

They have been getting Seasol 2 times a week and most have been in Semi shade

Ken