Wild Collecting 101

Adam_MA

Nice thread Will!
Some great tips and advice here. I got to collect some huge Yews from my neighbor this weekend and plant them into my beds. Unfortunately he didn't wait for me to get home to help him and he didn't get as many roots as I would have liked, but we'll have to see.

Adam

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rockm

Will,

to be honest, I would have left about 90-95 percent of these trees in the field--the possible exception is the larger Jack pine.

When I make the effort to get off my butt and collect stuff, it has to be something that isn't comparable to what I've seen in nurseries or bonsai suppliers. That usually means older trees, with larger trunks (2" is a minimum diameter). I have very little room in my backyard though, so I have to be very selective.

Will_Heath

Rockm,

Thank you for your honest reply, it is appreciated.

I have a few reasons for collecting those other than the Jack in the Box I would like to share.

The larches are for forests, self explanatory.

The Spruce I have a Literati in mind for, needed the thin long trunk.

I have no real excuse for the smaller Jack Pines as you have seen, I have a field full of them growing, in a few more years I'll have all the thick trunks I need, pre-pruned.

Well okay, maybe one excuse, I wanted a couple sholins to work on and I have never seen a Jack pine for sale in any bonsai or regular nursery. Besides after seven years of waiting (four for these ones I pulled) I got impatient.

All I can say, is wait till you see the big ones.

Thanks again,


Will

Will_Heath

By far the best experience I had last weekend was seeing the progress of all the pines I had planted and cutting them back. There is nothing like moving from tree to tree with a sharp spade and a pair of pruners and creating the stock I will be collecting for years to come.

The Jack Pines have a weird growth pattern, although they can and do get whorls, they do not swell as badly as the white pines. The bottom most branches take off like crazy growing in lenght in distance more than the total height of the tree. Cutting back to these lower branches creates some radicl trunk movement as the new lower branches take off to reach for sunlight.

A lot of these jack pines will have a dozen very long lower branches and the leader almost seems stunted, sometimes creating a swellon ball at the top with many shoots coming out above it. I have found that by cutting just under this ball and placing it into the soil, it will root quite easily, giving me a way to plant new trees while trimming the old. I now use this technique when collecting also, replacing what I take, so to speak.


Will

Will_Heath

Here's a link for those of you who said Jack Pine? What the heck is that and can it be bonsai?

ripssurf

so what kind of paw print was that?

Will_Heath

Coyote.

Lol, and not a Road Runner anywhere.

Beep Beep,

Will

Will_Heath

The Jack Pine (The pine in the drawer) is responding well to it's temporary home and the smaller Larches I collected for a forest (in the pots in the ground) are doing fine and budding like mad.



Will

Attached Images

	collected jack 001.JPG (60.8 KB, 75 views)
	collected jack 002.JPG (64.0 KB, 64 views)
	collected larches.JPG (67.0 KB, 73 views)

Will_Heath

For those of you that may be interested, I have posted another installment of this article here.


Will