AusBonsai

I think I have just saved them from a sure death. These were found outside a neigbour's fence. The soil is so dry and rock hard. They have straight tap root but also a mass of fine suface root to take advantage of the thin top soil and leaf litters. The neighbour has many times applied weed killers on them and they still live
Look very aged to me.

Edit: Add pics

nice mate, they should pull through well, are these the small leaf variety? im interested to see where you go with them i figure you will be shortening them quite drastically after recovery?

I think they are mate. Just don't know how I'm gonna style them yet. I'll just focus on pulling them through to recover first. Some of them will be shorten but I 'd like to reserve most of the branches with existed movements

i dont think you will have to worry bout them pulling through, they may sulk a little but will come back firing in no time mate, just watch for root fungal issues, brian inglis lost a massive monster privet that was absolutely awesome to it. it seems it is a qld sort of issue to, just keep ya eyes open mate

Sure jamie. Looks like I will need to move to using less organic soils.

nice find there!

u wont have a problem with styling them because i can see some great movement in the trunkline already

and also they are privets they just cant die thats why they are the best material to collect and work on

they bulk up really fast so u can have stunning trees in a few years ORRRRR have u considered a forest just a suggestion

cheers .minh

Thanks Minh. I will need to dig some more if I am to do a forest planting. Sounds like you've train privets before. Could you post some photos?
DK