Hornbeam and a Fuji cherry

So I dug up another one as only one or two of it's leaves had started to pop. As I previously said most of these have been planted really deep by the landscapers, resulting in the original root system and then another shallower set of roots higher up. Or at least that's what I think has happened.
I was trying to decide whether to remove the upper roots and sort out the lower bunch as obviously it gives more survival chances, and a wider chunky base. From one side the flare is quite good -


But from the other side once those upper roots are removed, you would end up with a pretty big bulge where they used to be.



Whether or not it was the right way to go about it, I opted for lopping off the whole lower root system and ended up with this -



Not sure I fancy its chances of pulling through with the main root system removed but we shall see. Feel like a bit of a butcher but I have 2 others in big pots which I didn't remove the shitty clay soil from, so this gives me some idea of what to possibly expect when I do a repot in a year or two when they've settled from collection.

I also found this one which I quite like. Some of them are still covered in buds just breaking, some are mostly leafed out now, so I'll see what it's like next week and might just wait until autumn to collect.

How are this tree's doing?

Cattwooduk said:

So I dug up another one as only one or two of it's leaves had started to pop. As I previously said most of these have been planted really deep by the landscapers, resulting in the original root system and then another shallower set of roots higher up. Or at least that's what I think has happened.
I was trying to decide whether to remove the upper roots and sort out the lower bunch as obviously it gives more survival chances, and a wider chunky base. From one side the flare is quite good - View attachment 140268


But from the other side once those upper roots are removed, you would end up with a pretty big bulge where they used to be.

View attachment 140269

Whether or not it was the right way to go about it, I opted for lopping off the whole lower root system and ended up with this -

View attachment 140270

Not sure I fancy its chances of pulling through with the main root system removed but we shall see. Feel like a bit of a butcher but I have 2 others in big pots which I didn't remove the shitty clay soil from, so this gives me some idea of what to possibly expect when I do a repot in a year or two when they've settled from collection.

I also found this one which I quite like. Some of them are still covered in buds just breaking, some are mostly leafed out now, so I'll see what it's like next week and might just wait until autumn to collect.

View attachment 140271

Click to expand...

You made the right choice, getting rid of the lower roots. Sorry I didn't see this sooner. Let me know if it made it.

I've been real busy last few months with the baby who is now 5 1/2 months! He has also survived my equally noob level experience of dadding and is growing well. He was really not expecting the flash from my phone so he has a slightly shocked look as if he's been busted making a proper mess with his food


Not had much time to think about my trees although I have been keeping an eye on them - we had a bit of snow so I moved them into the shed to prevent any big root damage.
Last couple of weeks I have been starting to consider next steps when they begin to wake up. I took a few pictures of this one which was my favourite I collected, I'll post some of the others I got tomorrow if I have time, they all survived!



I'm wondering whether I should have wired in autumn before the new growth hardened? I'm going to get it out of this pot in the spring and move it into a wooden box that's a bit wider and shallower. Remove the clay soil and see what it's like below the soil. I feel like if I'm going to reduce the roots I should shorten the rampant top growth it put on, and maybe wire it at the same time? I haven't been able to work out which shoot I'm going to keep as leader yet.
I think one option is taking the shoot coming out of the thick branch I left and using that as the leader heading up to eventual apex, another would be to have that stub as a lower down lower than a new top coming from the strong new shoot on the left side. I like the second picture as the front of the tree.

Any ideas welcome, I really like the base of this guy and the movement it has so I'd rather crowd-source some direction towards not ballsing it up because I think in my untrained eye it has some great potential. The maple I hacked at in another thread is rather embarrassing to behold but I'll put an update on that as well soon.

Cute kid, have you dropped him yet?





They bounce?

Congrats with the kid!
I know how time consumimg they can be
Nice tree!

CasAH said:

Cute kid, have you dropped him yet?





They bounce?

Click to expand...

Haha no I've not managed to drop him yet, he's in love with our dog though who does push him around on the floor quite a bit which he finds hilarious. I'm sure as soon as he's crawling (real close to it, any day now!) And pulling himself up to stand they will be causing all kinds of mayhem together.

Ok here are some pictures of the other couple of hornbeams, the first was one which I now think I should have cut much lower as @defra advised last year... I'm not sure why I didn't in the end! I'm now debating whether to cut it down this spring or just leave it for this year as it didn't put on half as much growth as the other one. If I decide to repot it into better soil I'll cut it down a bit but haven't decided to which point, if not I'll just leave it be and keep feeding it until next year or autumn.


This one did indeed survive and put on better growth than I expected considering how much of the root I hacked off. Again, not sure what reason I had for leaving the weird stub at the top. I'm struggling to see anything when I look at this one unless I can put some serious bend in the branch - it's just too rigid as it is. Or I take it off completely maybe.

Had a check up on one of the trees I left in the ground last year - I just cut around the base and snipped through some of the thicker roots to get some fine ones growing and it seems to have worked perfectly. I'll keep an eye on the buds to get ready to dig it up. I'm hoping whatever is going on under the soil is as good as on top.

Dig it man. Get it home in good substrate and ready to grow. You got some sanicat pink from pets at home yet?

Victorim said:

Dig it man. Get it home in good substrate and ready to grow. You got some sanicat pink from pets at home yet?

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Nah I bought a 50l sack of universal bonsai soil from kaizen bonsai last year, general stuff meant for growing stuff on

I can't decide whether to chop the last one above the first or second branch, any suggestions?

That curve between the two branches looks nice, depending on the height to second branch I would try to keep it

So i finally lifted this one yesterday. I'm really glad that after cutting around it last year I just left it in the ground. It's thrown out a decent amount of new roots from the cuts and has a good amount of fine roots overall to get it established nicely I think. Like with the other ones I've lifted it had an upper and lower root system, so I was able to just cut right below the upper roots and lose the bottom mess.
I trimmed back the thick roots which were too long or didn't have much new fine root growth from them and put some angled cuts on others.

Some pictures but I haven't finished playing with the wiring yet, just got the top branch moved a bit to see get some ideas.

In the last picture I'm still debating whether to cut the same angled cut but from the next branch down on the left, just to bring the height down a little? I figure if I do that in the next day or two it will be ok still after collecting.

Leave it this season I'd say. The top is going to power the roots into that new box, so removing now is adding time. Get it bushy in the box

Probably a good idea to give it recovery time yes. I just have echoing in my head from a previous post where someone said if in doubt chop lower... then again once it's gone it's gone and I've missed the chance now!
I like the curve above the first set of branches, but feels a little like the apex should be where the top of the trunk currently is. I'll see how it recovers and may end up cutting it down again in a couple of years perhaps depending on what growth it puts on.

If you like the curve then layer it. No point wasting something you like the look of