Mojave Bound, Juniper Found

bonsaial1

Leap year 2004, extra sunday, rain all week, who could ask for better collecting conditions. Kofu Kai, a club started by Harry Hirao, was to have their annual juniper dig on the last day of the month. I packed all my gear in the truck the night before and was able to slog my body out of bed at 1:00AM sunday morning to drive to Tulare and hitch a ride with my partner for the dig. I met up with Gary Biggs of the Hanford club and we made the trip to Denny's in the small town of Mojave in the California desert.

The resturant was overrun with about 50 bonsai enthusiast's talking about bonsai, shoveling in eggs and toast, and asking questions about the dig site. This group had many individuals that had never been on a dig. (Their world would soon be turned on end!)

At 6:00AM we made the drive north to the dig site in the mountains of Jawbone Canyon. About 25 miles north of Mojave. At the site most of the group parked in one area while others went different directions, and some would move to other locations in search of better trees. This is a view of some of the cars at the site..

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bonsaial1

This area has been protected for a while and has not seen many digging parties. The landscape behind in the hills is rich with junipers and the hills were also covered with oak, Mountain mahogany, quail bush, and some kind of pine that I had never seen before. This view is some of the cars looking north

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bonsaial1

I decided to hit this draw up the side of the mountain. Snow was sticking on the ground there even though the temp was fairly mild. Most all the green dots in the pic are junipers. Trouble is most grow like an aloe vera plant. The trunk stays very small, and the branches radiate from the base of the trunk and grow upwards like suckers. Trees like this will almost never make good bonsai. First they have no trunk, and last the branches are just whips with foliage at the tips.

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spoonman

is there going to be any results posted?

__________________
"Little laurel trees, your roots can find
No mountain, yet your leaves extend
Beyond your own world into mine
Perennial wands, unfolding in my thought
The budding evergreen of time."
-Kathleen Raine, The Trees in Tubs

bonsaial1

I lugged my tools and water around for 3 hours before I found the tree I would soon dig. The tree was under the shade of a larger juniper, much larger, about 20 feet across. I feel that the best trees come from a shaded area, since this makes the tree stretch to find the sun and therefore build a suitable trunk.

This tree was double trunk in nature and about 4 feet tall. The trunk was about 4" across at the soil line.

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Experience is fundamental

bonsaial1

The area under the tree was cleared and the trunk inspected for borer damage. If I see borers I will treat for them back at the truck before taking home.

The tree wa clean and I started digging a trench around the tree. The trees in this area seem to be in much better shape, and are growing in a type of clay soil rather then rock like the last few I have dug. The tree started to show some signs of roots and I became very excited. I little more digging and I started to see the mother load of roots. This plant had a ring of roots at about 2 " under the soil line and it was about 6" thick. What a find!

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bonsaial1

It did not take long to free the tree from the ground. I had only two large roots to cut, about the size of my thumb. The root ball at this point was about 12" across and 8" thick.

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bonsaial1

The roots were covered in long fibred moss and wrapped with stretch packaging tape. This holds the moss and the roots in a compact ball. The clay soil was knocked from the roots with the aid of a chop stick and I am glad that I did, Gary just sent me a PM during this post and said that the clay he used to temporarily plant his trees in set up like concrete and he had to cut the pots off! Yikes!

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bonsaial1

The digs in Mojave always have been, and always will be set up by Harry Hirao. The land is private property and permission to dig has been a long time agreement between the land owner and Harry. This is not always the case and permission from private property or permitts should be procured before digging on any land.

__________________
Experience is fundamental