Collected Hemlock first of the year

River's Edge

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Found this Mountain Hemlock in the fog and rain at 3800 feet today. Older thicker base growing in a classic pocket on bedrock. 1 1/2 hours to dig. Started the hike at 8:45 this morning and got back to the truck at 4:45 this afternoon. Glad i had the GPS with the fog,rain and heavy snow to slog through in sections higher up. No buds breaking at this level this year, maybe in a few weeks. Only the exposed southern rock faces were clear.
 

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River's Edge

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Found this Mountain Hemlock in the fog and rain at 3800 feet today. Older thicker base growing in a classic pocket on bedrock. 1 1/2 hours to dig. Started the hike at 8:45 this morning and got back to the truck at 4:45 this afternoon. Glad i had the GPS with the fog,rain and heavy snow to slog through in sections higher up. No buds breaking at this level this year, maybe in a few weeks. Only the exposed southern rock faces were clear.
The best collection site are the rock pockets, however one needs to check the root ball carefully for hitchhikers! The picture below will show the rocks collected from the root ball and left on the mountain rather than carried down. For this tree the excavation was about 12-18 inches to bedrock and approximately 18 inches out from the trunk all around. There were five major anchor roots and quite a few fibrous roots in the central core. The mass of surface roots and central core was left intact for the trip down. ( minus the bedrock pieces) Yesterday the tree was bare rooted and placed in Anderson Flat. Second flat underneath for better drainage and aeration. This also stiffens the flat for movement. The tree was wired in and soil carefully placed around the remaining roots. Anchor roots were cut flush and sealed. All dead roots, all roots belonging to other plants were also removed. It is often surprising how many of the roots belong to other shrubs and plants. Charred remains of an older portion of the trunk was also removed, along with a section that was decaying. It was cut back to healthy wood. The tree will now go in a fairly sunny location with wind protection and extra misting during recovery. Mountain Hemlock are one of the few species that particularly benefit from misting. Pictures are not in the exact order. The big bin is handy for the slow process with chopstick and water wand bare rooting with the least amount of damage. The pack and hydraulic lift are luxury items due to advancing age. The shovel and pick axe are my favourite "armstrong" tools on the mountain. This one did not require the crowbar.
 

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Gsquared

Shohin
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It has such graceful movement already. Looking forward to watching the development.
 

River's Edge

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It has such graceful movement already. Looking forward to watching the development.
I agree, kind of intimidating to try and improve on nature sometimes! What is intriguing about this one is also the fact that some live branches actually remain on the lower portion of the original broken trunk. The promising aspect is that the remaining live branches appear younger and the remains of the older branches have basically eroded away or were essentially a lot higher on the original trunk that broke off and rotted away into the landscape. Being younger branches there is more hope of denser foliage development eventually.
 

River's Edge

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Bummer looked verry promising!
I was pretty dissapointed, thought it had great potential. My collecting partner was not as surprised as i was. He suspected the tree was pretty far gone when i collected it! :eek: I thought it was a bit jaundiced. It would have been smarter to fertilize the tree in place with organic and come back in a year! Hindsight.
 

defra

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I was pretty dissapointed, thought it had great potential. My collecting partner was not as surprised as i was. He suspected the tree was pretty far gone when i collected it! :eek: I thought it was a bit jaundiced. It would have been smarter to fertilize the tree in place with organic and come back in a year! Hindsight.

Yeah hindsight would be nice every once in a while!
there was quite some green on it tough so I understand you had higher expectations in the Netherlands we don't have real yamadori and even if I'd ever find one it will be Realy hard/impossible to get a permit to dig it up
 

River's Edge

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Yeah hindsight would be nice every once in a while!
there was quite some green on it tough so I understand you had higher expectations in the Netherlands we don't have real yamadori and even if I'd ever find one it will be Realy hard/impossible to get a permit to dig it up
I can understand the difficulty finding yamadori in the Netherlands. When i have visited the area it seems that most every square inch has been developed or farmed repeatedly over the generations. Perhaps some interesting livestock damaged windbreak trees!
The garden centres had a wide variety of trees and shrubs though, way more than here in Canada. Saw lots of neat pine cultivars i had not seen before.
 
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