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wireme

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So we should mock @MACH5 ?









but in a good sense:D

Ha, no, he just has a talent for laying out that sparse foliage into really nice airy "pads" in a way that looks beautifully natural and graceful and makes super dense and tight foliage completely unnecessary! Some of his junipers look better with the spacious foliage than they would with tight I think. I'm sure it depends on the individual tree and trunk etc. but I believe he has shown that sometimes coarse native foliage like what @Vin seems to have can be used very well.
 

wireme

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Depends who you ask!

View attachment 157270

With a Soldano!

Sorce

Check this out. This is an old Douglas Fir on the side of a nearby highway here. I think the crown is a very old grown out witches broom. Anyway its unusual and distinctive enough that even normal people (unlike all of us I mean) notice the tree. Ask anyone in the east kootenays if they know where the broccoli tree is and odds are good they can direct you to this tree.
So, broccoli is really not all that bad either and is completely naturalistic as well.
Some people call it the cauliflower tree but that's just weird, totally wrong colour for one thing..image.jpg
I love those WP spruce blog posts, quite something how those spruce from just a few years ago are coming along.
 

M. Frary

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. I have a few others that are pretty terrible
There was 2 at our club show this year.
They both had stringy foliage. One was a demo tree that Dave Wall did. It was collected by Andy Smith.
After he was done wiring it all up I asked him when will it get the shimpaku foliage grafted onto It? He took it quite well and said some people would call it sacrilege to put the shimpaku on a 150 year old tree.
And laughed.
 

wireme

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The big day.. well, evening. FA7E3CDE-E214-4FE3-9DE1-9133475F7370.jpeg

EC7AAB45-1D48-4C2C-9FE4-9515CE311A66.jpeg
Took off the sides and really couldn’t have been any happier with what I found in there. A few rocks were used here and there to take up empty space when I boxed it. I’d forgotten, no wonder it was so heavy, bit of a grunt lifting it on to the stump. 9C4339B8-D1FB-4D95-97BB-639C002BB79C.jpeg
Top and sides were combed out then I hoisted the tree to work the bottom loose. BCB3FD82-F1B7-4886-A69D-3305144B8FB4.jpegF71AF05D-91FA-4A3C-95F5-A800A0D0FCBD.jpeg
After that was done set it back down and picked a spot to shorten the rootball to. I’m sure I could have reduced closer to the trunk but I’m cautious. The skewer is stuck in the spot. I raked my way through cutting as I went. Small roots first letting the large one support the weight. Could have just sawed through blind but you’ve got to be careful with yamadori junipers. Sometimes all the root around the trunk actually comes from a root that grew out and doubled back, don’t want to cut the wrong thing. Having collected and potted this myself I knew that wasn’t the case but still... raked through it easily, nothing was doubling back. BD07634F-DF32-4397-885D-5CE6423EE16E.jpeg
 
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wireme

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Next step, comb down from the top more to determine the soil/planting height. Look around a bit for original soil, there never was a lot, not much worry there, crumbled a couple pockets out though. Sides loosened up a bit more as the soil level came down. 581E3B5C-A58C-4F1C-85CF-29B7CF84D8D8.jpegCDFACEA4-425D-4527-ABDD-E937F631C48E.jpeg
From there took measurements, built a box, flipped it over to loosen the underside upwards and potted. Actually very straightforward, nothing awkward or surprising. Probably around 70 percent of the remaining rootball wasn’t touched at all. Entire core almost completely untouched. The disturbed roots just combed and loosened and no roots cut really at all except for the shortened end. I don’t think the tree will skip a beat over this.
Dark by the time I was done and it’s gonna look like a bomb went off out there in the morning, tools, soil, wood.. things.. everywhere.
 

wireme

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Sitting in the new home.

Despite building on the spot and using a tape measure somehow I still built the box little larger than it should have been. ☹️
If I had a pot the right size for the tree I’m sure it could have gone straight in no problem, that’s too bad. The bottom rails are left long for carrying handles. Because I always wonder how the roots are faring I built a couple root viewing windows into the box, it’s an idea I’ve had for years but have never actually done it before. I’ll have to cut new plugs and fasten better later.
I still have to fine tune the surfacing as well, take it down a little lower and some mossing 4D078C0D-A9AD-437E-9244-8C1538EDBC3D.jpegB22C89CE-946B-4676-9F27-9CF745B24114.jpeg84C7A2C7-3E51-4D33-B044-C55702B36978.jpegAE726B62-1761-4B94-B62B-B2164D93B295.jpeg0136376E-47A7-4BF5-8E8C-678E793B87A3.jpeg
 

wireme

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Well, gonna start packing trees away for the winter this weekend. Getting down to -7 with snow in a couple days.
I may update a few trees while they are out.

So the story of this tree this year. It got stumped out in the middle of the yard. Normally I keep my trees all around the perimeter of the yard so that the family has useable yard space too. It makes it hard to properly view and plan a big tree like this so I brought it out for the summer to where I could walk all around and study it properly.

Tried to identify branches and bits that were going to be unusable for a final design and pruned some of them away. A few guy wires to move things apart and towards potential final positions. This was not styling but opening it up enough to really be able to see what’s going on inside. Then I looked and thought many times through the summer. Can’t say I’ve made up my mind about all the upcoming moves but narrowed down my choices anyways.

Here’s a quick shot of my favoured front view that I took this evening. It’s horribly backlit and looks like barely any foliage, don’t panic, photo very deceiving, I did prune some but not much yet.
I’ll try for better pics tomorrow.

The tree is growing moderately well, a few runners taking off, not exploding with them but overall nice, green, healthy. E9E5D075-84C1-44D8-9908-7823AFD7DAF9.jpeg
 

misfit11

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Fantastic tree. Kudos on a successful collection and for the patience you’ve exhibited to allow this tree to settle in before any major work. You’ll be rewarded by an absolutely show stopper for your efforts. Congratulations!
 
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