Wild Collecting 102

Will_Heath

A short while ago I wrote a short article named Wild Collecting 101, which covered the basics of collecting trees from the wild. Many of these basics have been published elsewhere and most articles stop there. In part two I will attempt to dive a little deeper into collecting techniques that have worked for me over the years and to the reasoning behind some techniques that I use.

Micro Environments

Before you collected that tree it was living in a relationship with other plants and fungus. These relationships can be major like the Mycorrhizae in the roots system or minor like living in the shade cast by a larger nearby tree or playing host to the moss and linchen growing on it’s trunk.

There are also Micro Enviroments created by the plants that are growing around the trunk and ontop of the root ball. These plants have shaded the root ball, collected dew, held in moisture, supplied nutrients, and hosted a vast collection of micro organisims since the tree was a seedling. The plants roots are intermingled with the roots of the tree, at times sharing the same water, nutrients and benificial Mycorrhizae with the very tree you are collecting.

Removing the tree from its environment is stressful enough without also ripping out these plants that form a Micro Environment that the tree is used to. Removing the plants that make up this Micro Environment will also unnecessarily disturb the fine upper most roots of the tree. When I collect I take great care to collect the whole root ball including all the plants that are growing on it. I am very careful to leave all the plants untouched as they can removed gradually as the tree strengthens and totally removed at the next repotting once the tree has become accustomed to it’s new environment.

The pictures below are of a Jack Pine I collected recently. The first two pictures are of the intact root ball as collected; the third picture is of the root ball after I have taken a chopstick to the edges and underside. I use a wooden chopstick to loosen the soil around the edges and bottom, exposing only the slightest amount of roots. The top is left completely untouched. The only roots I remove are thick ones that protrude beyond the confines of the box it will be planted in and these only if I cannot bend them to fit. Sometimes it is feasible to wire a big root to another, bending it inwards so it fits. Cutting off a root on a freshly collected tree should only be done as a last resort.





Will Heath

Attached Images

	micro 001.JPG (64.2 KB, 386 views)
	micro 002.JPG (72.9 KB, 240 views)
	micro ready 001.JPG (67.4 KB, 265 views)

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Will_Heath

Upon potting the collected tree into a training box I set the intact root ball onto a shallow layer of soil and then work the soil around all sides, then I slightly cover all the surface plants with a thin layer of soil as I have found that they respond much better this way and will grow up through the soil in a couple of weeks. Pictures 4 and 5 show the potted tree with the surface plants covered mostly with a soil mix consisting of 70% lava rock, 10% turface, and 20% fir bark. Picture 6 shows the completed potted tree.



Will Heath

Attached Images

	potted 001.JPG (45.0 KB, 196 views)
	potted 002.JPG (55.3 KB, 142 views)
	potted 003.JPG (50.0 KB, 172 views)

Will_Heath

Let A Tree Be A Tree

It has been mentioned in many articles that one should cut back foliage after collecting in order to “balance” the foliage to the recently cut root mass. I believe that there is absolutely no way that we can guess the amount, if any, to cut back to achive this balance.

While it is true that trees have an inbuilt need for balance and that they will go to great lengths to achieve it, I have found that some of the current practices are detrimental to the survival and development of the tree.

You see when we slightly cut back the roots on a collected tree we create an unbalance in the tree that the tree is genetically programmed to over come. The excess foliage (in comparison to the freshly trimmed root mass) causes a water loss in the tree by the water diffusing out of the stomata as carbon dioxide diffuses in for photosynthesis and that the smaller root mass can not supply.

The solution to this problem is not cutting back the foliage because we can never know how much. Too little and you still have an unbalanced system, too much and you now have another completely different unbalance in the tree.

Instead the solution is to let the tree be a tree. The tree will respond to a light trimming of the roots and the resulting unbalance by creating more roots! Yes, exactly what we want and all we have to do is leave it alone. When there are too many leaves on a tree and not enough roots, water stress will increase, leaf growth will stop and root growth will continue until balance is once again achieved.

A tree has built in feedback controls hardwired between the foliage and the roots designed so that the tree stays in balance. We see examples of this all the time; in fact often we use it to our advantage, I wonder why we so often go against what we see with our own eyes?

Below are some pictures of the freshly planted Jack Pine that I mentioned above. You can see from the pictures that none of the foliage has been cut back at all. I will not cut any back until very early spring. At this point I will be using the trees natural balance again but in reverse for another reason. Once the roots have balanced themselves with the foliage, I will then cut back the foliage. The tree will once again respond to keep balance but this time it will be trying to balance the pruned foliage with the roots, forcing out new growth on branches and also new buds on old wood. This technique has allowed me to successfully obtain back budding on older pines.




Will Heath

Attached Images

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	potted 001.JPG (45.0 KB, 174 views)
	growbox 001.JPG (50.4 KB, 79 views)
	potted 003.JPG (50.0 KB, 63 views)
	potted top 001.JPG (58.1 KB, 139 views)
	potted close up top 001.JPG (58.0 KB, 75 views)

BonsaiGreenhorn

Great information Will.

Thanks for 101 & 102
Keep us updated on that pine!

-Evan

__________________

Will_Heath

Against Doctors Orders

Imagine going to the doctor for a illness and learning that he recommends no medicine, no food, no vitamins, and warns against anything life giving at all. You and I would automatically label this doctor a quack and seek a second opinion, yet we take the same advice regarding our freshly collected bonsai to heart.

It has often been said that you should place a freshly collected tree in the shade and withhold fertilizer for some time. I personally do not subscribe to this school of thought. I can not see withholding life giving sun or nutrients from a tree that is in great need of repair.

A tree is a very complex organism with many built in controls as I have mentioned above. Trees have evolved to deal with injuries in many ways, none of which includes changing location to a shady, sterile spot until it heals.

When a tree is injured it goes into a repair mode where cells are produced to start healing wounds and to increase growth in order to replace the missing foliage and/or roots. The tree will once again seek to balance itself and by doing so will require energy in the form of sunlight and nutrients. By withholding either, we force the tree to tap reserves that are best left for uncontrollable events.

I have placed freshly collected pines in direct sunlight and started feeding from the minute they are potted. In fact if you count the fish emulsion solution that I often spray on the roots to prevent drying out, I actually start feeding before the tree is actually potted. To date I have had no ill effects and the trees seem to respond better than the others I tried using the "starve in darkness" method.


I hope my experiences with collecting and the little knowledge I have picked up helps you in your own collecting.

Will Heath

Joanie

Fantastic article, Will! And, dare it be said, it makes a lot of ..... sense.

Thank you, sincerely, for taking the time to write the articles that you have done. They are worth reading over and over, and are an excellent resource.

Joanie

bonsaial1

While I have done many of the same things you speak of here, this is not information that should go without a PSA announcement. Even the promoters of the new diet pills or vitimins must place a disclaimer such as:

RESULTS NOT TYPICAL, THIS TREATMENT MAY RESULT IN DEATH UNLESS YOUR EXPERIENCED

If you were an open heart surgeon, would your prescription for going home be : "no change in diet and you may return to work on Monday".

Do you actually think that your recipe would work for say someone in Arizona or me here in the Central Valley. If I spray fertilizer on freshly dug roots on a three hundred year old juniper like the two I collected two months ago and the 97 degree temps we had today, it's sayonara baby and there's no smiley face behind this sentance.

Location, location, location. Al

__________________
Real men don't wear coats with "happi" in the title.

Will_Heath

Al,

As you should well know, your methods for collecting junipers in the desert would kill trees here in Michigan and most likely visa versa. Of course the climate plays a role, this goes without saying. To suggest that Florida collecting is exactly the same as Michigan collecting or desert collecting is the same as forest collecting is asinine. No smiley faces here either.

I am happy to hear that you have used many of these techniques yourself, many people do. Although climate separates us we still share many techniques that are universally sound, they only need slight adaptation for climates.


Will

Will_Heath

In light of Al Keppler's recent attacks on this article and the information within, I thought I'd share a couple words from others with you.

In Bonsai Today issue 75 on page 48 Walter Pall states in part two of his "Collecting Trees From The Wild" article, "Trying to balance the crown and the roots of a tree, as is often recommended, makes no sense. The tree itself knows much better what to do. Even Japanese collectors have had the same experience. After digging up a juniper, they leave the branches and needles intact. A year later, they can prune away long branches."

In Colin Lewis's book "The Art Of Bonsai Design" on page 115 in a side article about collecting wild pines he states, "Take as substantial a root ball as possible and wrap it very tightly in plastic sheeting and packing tape. Retain the flora growing in the root ball (apart from dandelions and other obvious weeds). This flora forms part of a ecosystem that the pine also plays a role in. They may share mycorrhiza, or some may influence the nature of the nutrient or trace element content of the local soil."

He then goes on to say, "Subterranean organisms certainly do have a significant effect on the ability of plants to survive stress such as transplanting. These organisms, in turn, can depend on the local plants for their success. In simple terms, don't break the cycle until the pine is accustomed to living on it's own new root system."

I never claimed I was the only one who thought this way Al.....



Will