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Smoke

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Looks set to me.....
 

Smoke

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The weight of all that foliage is going to try and pull all the turns out of your trunk. Within a few months it will start to straighten out. It will be a challenge to keep this that way. The big wire that was on there was holding the tree. Now the tree has to support itself.

Of all the elms I did, I love this one the most...but I have wire wrapped around a couple of those stilt exposed roots holding the tree up. The weight of the long neck and foliage out there tries to topple the tree out of the pot. You can see the wire around some roots. Notice the angle the wire is applied, 45 degrees gives good holding power and maximum tension.

067.JPG
 

amcoffeegirl

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The weight of all that foliage is going to try and pull all the turns out of your trunk. Within a few months it will start to straighten out. It will be a challenge to keep this that way. The big wire that was on there was holding the tree. Now the tree has to support itself.

Of all the elms I did, I love this one the most...but I have wire wrapped around a couple of those stilt exposed roots holding the tree up. The weight of the long neck and foliage out there tries to topple the tree out of the pot. You can see the wire around some roots. Notice the angle the wire is applied, 45 degrees gives good holding power and maximum tension.

View attachment 224463
Your elm is beautiful.
I don’t want the ficus to lose all its curves.
The trunk is thicker than when I got it though so hopefully it will hold well enough.
Once I get it outside for a season hopefully it will look pretty good.
 

amcoffeegirl

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Update
I was afraid to put this one outside all these years. But,it turns out that ficus love the sun. :) I will put it outside from now on.
You can see from the pics that it does need to be wired. Pics don’t lie! AACC26AB-27C7-4372-809E-94C3EF4DA40C.jpegB2AD4B28-272F-4F3E-ACB2-1CC8C3B7F18E.jpeg04160D2E-9181-47DC-AAAE-5280F61EFF84.jpeg
 

amcoffeegirl

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Bringing in the trees this fall brought a challenge of spider mites.
I have been battling them since late August.
I broke the original pot shortly after I moved into my house.
I slip potted this one into a Boggs pot. Sonny knew which tree he was making it for.
I will attempt to wire this in spring with a lot of curves in the fine branches to continue from the trunk. I was very pleased to see that even though the foliage had some mite damage the roots were in excellent condition.
Lots of fine white roots.
C98316C4-1E49-4913-A625-6445741F9897.jpeg5E8590ED-386A-4767-BE20-0B3899939B8F.jpeg
 

coh

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What have you been doing to deal with the mites? I find just taking the trees to the sink or bathtub and spraying thoroughly with water at least once a day will usually eliminate them pretty quickly. You do need to keep spraying after you think they're gone in case there are lurkers or eggs.
 

Cadillactaste

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Bringing in the trees this fall brought a challenge of spider mites.
I have been battling them since late August.
I broke the original pot shortly after I moved into my house.
I slip potted this one into a Boggs pot. Sonny knew which tree he was making it for.
I will attempt to wire this in spring with a lot of curves in the fine branches to continue from the trunk. I was very pleased to see that even though the foliage had some mite damage the roots were in excellent condition.
Lots of fine white roots.
View attachment 275240View attachment 275241
Love that tree. Sorry to hear of the spider mites. Hope you have the heavier hand in the fight battling them.

That pot looks great! Love his work.
 

amcoffeegirl

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Love that tree. Sorry to hear of the spider mites. Hope you have the heavier hand in the fight battling them.

That pot looks great! Love his work.
I will be easier to capture the color when I can put them outside again.
I know winter just started but I am excited for summer already. :)
 

amcoffeegirl

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What have you been doing to deal with the mites? I find just taking the trees to the sink or bathtub and spraying thoroughly with water at least once a day will usually eliminate them pretty quickly. You do need to keep spraying after you think they're gone in case there are lurkers or eggs.
I sprayed once when they came inside.
Decimated one of my premna.
It spread over to the ficus. I sprayed them every Sunday for 3 weeks using a miticide.
They came back. So I sprayed with neem.
I think they are gone now.
It was a bitch to be honest.
I think they were immune to the spray.
Ortho insect, mite and disease.
D9D6DD3B-7366-4C1A-8D36-8796D39D6C42.jpeg
 
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amcoffeegirl

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I had Jason Schley take a look at pics and he identified the mites for me. Told me to use a spray like Merit. With the active ingredient of.
AEDBB8B8-BB4F-4D5C-AFCC-B08869AF63E5.jpeg
I could never find Merit- here.
Bio- advanced has that ingredient but I switched to neem instead. It works - just took a bit longer.
I never did see any webbing on my plants.
When I did the shake test they did appear though.
 

coh

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Just so you know - there are published studies that indicate that imidacloprid may actually increase the breeding rate of spider mites (at the very least, it is ineffective against them). If it's part of a mixture that includes a dedicated miticide, it probably doesn't matter but it shouldn't be used alone for mites. Oil sprays will smother them (but can damage some plants), water will dislodge them, dedicated miticides will kill them but they can develop resistance.
 

amcoffeegirl

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Just so you know - there are published studies that indicate that imidacloprid may actually increase the breeding rate of spider mites (at the very least, it is ineffective against them). If it's part of a mixture that includes a dedicated miticide, it probably doesn't matter but it shouldn't be used alone for mites. Oil sprays will smother them (but can damage some plants), water will dislodge them, dedicated miticides will kill them but they can develop resistance.
I do spray water them all the time. I don’t know why they attacked my plants.
They may have came in with a new purchase though. It happens. Hopefully they are under control now.
 

Colorado

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I had spider mites bad on my willow leaf when I brought it in this year. I didn’t look at it for maybe 2 days and all of a sudden the infestation was pretty severe. I blasted them off with water and they appear to be gone, but the tree dropped all leaves and hasn’t sprouted any new ones yet. That was probably 2 months ago. The tips still look alive (I think). I’ve got it in a west facing window and watering about once per week since there is no foliage.

Think it’ll pull through? It was $10 starter material but I’d like it to make it....

Nice looking tree by the way!
 

Carol 83

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I had spider mites bad on my willow leaf when I brought it in this year. I didn’t look at it for maybe 2 days and all of a sudden the infestation was pretty severe. I blasted them off with water and they appear to be gone, but the tree dropped all leaves and hasn’t sprouted any new ones yet. That was probably 2 months ago. The tips still look alive (I think). I’ve got it in a west facing window and watering about once per week since there is no foliage.

Think it’ll pull through? It was $10 starter material but I’d like it to make it....

Nice looking tree by the way!
My willow leaf dropped all it's leaves last winter and showed virtually no signs of life until June, after being outside for a few weeks. Have patience, I bet it will be fine.
 

coh

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My willow leaf dropped all it's leaves last winter and showed virtually no signs of life until June, after being outside for a few weeks. Have patience, I bet it will be fine.
Same here, I wasn't paying enough attention to my trees last winter and one of them (willow leaf) developed a pretty severe mite infestation. By the time I realized it many of the leaves were yellowing and dropping, and it almost completely self-defoliated in February or March. Eventually it did start growing after getting moved outside, but I did lose some smaller branches and it hasn't recovered completely yet (the other willow leaf that was not severely infested grew much stronger this past year).
 

amcoffeegirl

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This one got knocked off the bench last night. I think a chipmunk did it.
It is set up so it won’t fall far. No damage was done. Will have to readjust the potting angle.
no worries.D1B8C6FD-1954-42E1-BD87-B208705C9106.jpeg038FB8CE-9A55-4153-A47D-DCB68B9235B5.jpegC9ACDCA1-164A-47B9-91DC-B0A092F91681.jpeg7F0C0CB2-7D55-4EC2-943C-2284CE177ADF.jpeg22291297-15A5-4111-A4F6-D097B6886461.jpeg
 
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