Creek Collected Honeysuckle

[RMJoe]

Here is a gnarly Amur honeysuckle I collected from the creek near my house this spring. Massive and gnarly from frequent floods breaking branches.

Bare rooted and planted it in a concrete mixing tub - it has been remarkably vigorous. Actually it was carried away in a flash flood after I potted it up and I found downstream with all soil washed out about 24 hours later - added what remained of my actual soil and a lot of regular potting soil (emergency measures!) and it never skipped a beat! I partly defoliated a few weeks ago so I could set some structure. All of the branches have been grown this season - Honeysuckle is quite fragile most of the time, so some of the branches which thickened up too much were quite difficult to get any movement into. Any opinions on front and pots would be appreciated. I will need to do quite a bit of carving down some of the stubs, but I will try to heal them over somewhat as there is already a ton of deadwood. Also, to preserve the big deadwood veins is PC petrifier the best option? I've seen various opinions.

 

[Jcmmaple]

Whoa that’s a beast, that will be some fun carving. Nice find

 

[RMJoe]

Spring update- repotted this guy into a huge Randy Davis pot I picked up from @zachkent29 , water bottle for scale. Did a bit of carving on the stumps left from collection last year, looking forward to rocking out this year, hoping for flowers!

 

[lunchbox27]

That’s gorgeous. We met today at the home and garden show and talked. I was working the booth as you were setting up your demo tree. It was great to meet everyone

 

[RMJoe]

That’s gorgeous. We met today at the home and garden show and talked. I was working the booth as you were setting up your demo tree. It was great to meet everyone

Great meeting you as well! Looking forward to seeing you at the next meeting if you can make it!

 

[PA_Penjing]

Phenomenal! About the best example I’ve seen from the species

 

[PA_Penjing]

Actually… I think just the best

 

[RMJoe]

Phenomenal! About the best example I’ve seen from the species

Thanks! It's easily my favorite tree I've collected. It came up with just a few roots and never skipped a beat, and they're everywhere here so it's easy to get a gnarly trunk. So far it develops very quickly, the stubs I carved back this spring are already callousing over surprisingly quickly as well.

 

[RMJoe]

Update-
Fall styling on this big guy, I moved to New England in January so I let most things grow wild without pruning. This one was so vigorous I performed a couple of partial outer canopy defoliations which did wonders for internal branching.

Before styling:

And After: