Wires_Guy_wires
Imperial Masterpiece
Hey people of the internet,
I have two 3-4 year old Cedars, I got them from a friend who works as a garden designer. They were bought pretty recently from a nursery and they seemed pretty healthy on the outside. It's winter here, so any after-autumn damage wouldn't show anyway until after dormancy.
After leaving them out for a few weeks, I found that after some rain they couldn't support themselves in fairly large containers (still with the original soil they were bought in). Upon inspection I found what might be the worst nightmare of any plant enthusiast: there were little to no roots at all. The taproot is present, along with just a hand full of adventitious roots, but no feeder roots and not even a lump of 'full soil leftovers'.
These little trees have most likely been pulled from the ground, washed, and thrown in potting soil.
These trees are lost. That's what I assume, that's the drift I caught. Still, I want to try and save them. Half of my trees have stories like that; saved from a garbage can, salvaged from a dumpster, literally found on a road.. I think it provides them with some character, at least to me.
First thing I did was applying a dilute IBA solution of around 0.2mg/L. Just to get some auxins going and hopefully stimulate adventitious root formation whenever dormancy breaks. That treatment might screw up some nice compact branch/foliar growth, but I'm fine with that.
Is there anything else I can do? I have everything in stock, from laboratory hormones and vitamin mixtures used in tissue culture, to a living back yard peat bog as a source of sphagnum, and even a whole plethora of mycorrhizae.. I want these trees to survive and thrive. Before I leave them alone for at least a year, I'd like to know if there's anything I can do to make the best out of this very poor situation.
We're going to have -12 degrees C of frost next week. Around the maximum of frost a deadora would be able to handle (as far as I've read). Would it be wise to place it in a south-faced sunny spot indoors? The argument supporting this idea would be something like: "With little to no roots, they can't handle full sun anyways, and the higher temperature could help them recover faster, winter dormancy has been going on for at least 3 months, so they've already had a kind of chill-out moment for the winter."
Bust that argument for me please, and help me off of that floating cloud of good hopes. I can handle the reality, but I do love to dream ;-)
Any advice would be much appreciated. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the roots, and digging them up again seems counterproductive to the healing process. Let's just say there's just 5-10% of the original root mass still present.
Thanks a lot for your time!
I have two 3-4 year old Cedars, I got them from a friend who works as a garden designer. They were bought pretty recently from a nursery and they seemed pretty healthy on the outside. It's winter here, so any after-autumn damage wouldn't show anyway until after dormancy.
After leaving them out for a few weeks, I found that after some rain they couldn't support themselves in fairly large containers (still with the original soil they were bought in). Upon inspection I found what might be the worst nightmare of any plant enthusiast: there were little to no roots at all. The taproot is present, along with just a hand full of adventitious roots, but no feeder roots and not even a lump of 'full soil leftovers'.
These little trees have most likely been pulled from the ground, washed, and thrown in potting soil.
These trees are lost. That's what I assume, that's the drift I caught. Still, I want to try and save them. Half of my trees have stories like that; saved from a garbage can, salvaged from a dumpster, literally found on a road.. I think it provides them with some character, at least to me.
First thing I did was applying a dilute IBA solution of around 0.2mg/L. Just to get some auxins going and hopefully stimulate adventitious root formation whenever dormancy breaks. That treatment might screw up some nice compact branch/foliar growth, but I'm fine with that.
Is there anything else I can do? I have everything in stock, from laboratory hormones and vitamin mixtures used in tissue culture, to a living back yard peat bog as a source of sphagnum, and even a whole plethora of mycorrhizae.. I want these trees to survive and thrive. Before I leave them alone for at least a year, I'd like to know if there's anything I can do to make the best out of this very poor situation.
We're going to have -12 degrees C of frost next week. Around the maximum of frost a deadora would be able to handle (as far as I've read). Would it be wise to place it in a south-faced sunny spot indoors? The argument supporting this idea would be something like: "With little to no roots, they can't handle full sun anyways, and the higher temperature could help them recover faster, winter dormancy has been going on for at least 3 months, so they've already had a kind of chill-out moment for the winter."
Bust that argument for me please, and help me off of that floating cloud of good hopes. I can handle the reality, but I do love to dream ;-)
Any advice would be much appreciated. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the roots, and digging them up again seems counterproductive to the healing process. Let's just say there's just 5-10% of the original root mass still present.
Thanks a lot for your time!
.
