Five Year Native Tree Challenge: Gabler's American Beech #5

Gabler

Masterpiece
Messages
2,358
Reaction score
3,188
Location
The Delmarva Peninsula
USDA Zone
7a
Fagus grandifolia is possibly my favorite species of tree, so when I found this specimen dwarfed by grazing animals, probably including a beaver, I couldn't pass it up. I don't live in a mountainous area, so it's rare that I find real yamadori. The best I can usually hope for is a thick trunk with a few forked branches to prune away for instant taper. Moreover, the leaves had a rich, copper color, rather than a pale beige. I don't know how much of the color is genetic and how much is environmental, but I'm hoping to get that color next winter.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a great rootball. Although the trunk and branches were dwarfed by grazing animals, the roots spread wide, and they didn't hold soil when I pulled up the root ball. I did, however, collect a large amount of mycelium to carry back and mix in with my bonsai soil. Hopefully, that helps the tree to compensate for a poor root ball. I've included a picture of the mycelium clinging to the rootball of another tree I collected a few feet away. It was about three inches of humus and fungus covering the forest floor in that area, plus another inch of leaf chunks, plus three more inches on top of that were whole leaves from the previous year. Not a smidgen of inorganic matter in the rootball.

1614914128214.png


1614914171160.png

1614914243737.png

1614914573451.png

1614915651340.png
 
Last edited:

Gabler

Masterpiece
Messages
2,358
Reaction score
3,188
Location
The Delmarva Peninsula
USDA Zone
7a
I potted up the tree and trimmed off the leaves, careful not to cut any buds, so it would be easier to see the branch structure and prune any unneeded branches. More than any other tree I've photographed, this tree suffers from the effect of representing a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional image. To mitigate that effect, I took pictures from several angles. Unfortunately, I only now see that the tree is slightly blurry, as the camera focused on the background rather than the foreground. That said, note that half the trunk is dead, and the other half is slowly rolling over it as it heals.

1614915252981.png

1614915291638.png

1614915451997.png

1614915484615.png
 

Attachments

  • 1614914899912.png
    1614914899912.png
    790.6 KB · Views: 1
  • 1614914952359.png
    1614914952359.png
    765.9 KB · Views: 1

Gabler

Masterpiece
Messages
2,358
Reaction score
3,188
Location
The Delmarva Peninsula
USDA Zone
7a
Still living. Unfortunately, it’s a bit hard to discern the foliage against this background.

DA50CF36-0DD4-408C-82C8-9F537D065799.jpeg
 

Gabler

Masterpiece
Messages
2,358
Reaction score
3,188
Location
The Delmarva Peninsula
USDA Zone
7a
The tree did well last year, and it has large, healthy buds, so I decided to prune a bit. I removed a shoot and a branch both growing from the same point on the trunk as the main branch. I also removed a bit of the dead section of trunk, as the wood had softened up where I made a crevice to hold water inside the dead portion.

01A06BF6-72DE-4196-8D5F-2B7848F4CD5B.jpeg

B0C0BED3-38B0-4A33-8244-0FEA92754D4E.jpeg
 

Gabler

Masterpiece
Messages
2,358
Reaction score
3,188
Location
The Delmarva Peninsula
USDA Zone
7a
I moved my mountain laurel to a grow bag and up-potted my other beech to the mountain laurel’s old pot, so I up-potted this beech to the other beech’s old pot. My beech buds are just starting to swell, so the timing seemed right. Mercifully, all species don’t leaf out at the same time.

Here’s the tree slipped into a deeper pot. It might not be obvious by the photo, but this mica pot is twice as deep as the ceramic pot the tree formerly occupied.

FB694795-E8BA-4AF3-95E2-A0D19D5E40C7.jpeg
 
Top Bottom