Five Year Native Tree Challenge: Gabler's American Beech

[Gabler]

I rarely find Fagus grandifolia of a collectable size with interesting trunk movement. I happened to spot an interesting tree, though. I figured I'd go ahead and enter it in the contest before the deadline closes. I figure I'll try to train it into a twin-trunk literati sort of thing, or maybe develop those little shoots into more trunks for a clump. Worst case scenario, I have an ugly tree and return it to the wild in five years.

 

[Gabler]

So. I expected to find the tree connected to other beeches in the area, but I didn't expect to find just one ENORMOUS root at the base of the tree. I have no idea whether it might survive. I did not expect I would need a chain saw to collect the tree. Fortunately, I have a saw with a damaged blade for cutting roots still buried in soil, so I didn't have to ruin a good chain. It also helped that the ground is a thick soupy mud with all the snow that's been thawing over the past week. Soft soil makes for easy hand-digging to scoop out mud from under the section of root I was cutting.

 

[Gabler]

Here is the tree still in the ground. It was connected to the large root behind the trunk I collected. At first, I actually tried to collect the whole thing, but that proved functionally impossible. Instead, I isolated a section of root just below the trunk I liked.



Here's a close-up.

 

[Gabler]

I made a simple training pot from an old plastic water tank. For soil, I used calcined clay pebbles and long-fiber sphagnum moss. I layered some old leaves over the soil surface to prevent moisture from evaporating too quickly from the otherwise well-aerated soil. Ignore the red oak tree stump in the galvanized tub. Also, at this point, I'm thinking of the tree more as an experiment than a serious contest entry, but hey, you never know how things might turn out.

 

[Cmd5235]

Oh stink, I don’t know about this one man. I’m from SE Pennsylvania and I’ve passed over a lot (and I mean a crap ton) of decent beech due to the whole root issue. I’m interested to see if this thing survives.

 

[Gabler]

If it does, it'll make for an interesting raft-style tree.

 

[Aeast]

I have a thread on here about this exact thing, I plan on doing a few ground layers this spring .

 

[Gabler]

Well, she's leafing out. So far, so good.

 

[Gabler]

Some clearer pictures.

 

[Gabler]

For whatever reason, this tree is about two weeks ahead of all the other beeches collected this year from the same forest. I wonder if it has to do with the tree's lack of feeder roots. I guess leaves could give the tree the energy to send out more roots more quickly. Then again, it could be because this is a sucker from a much older tree, or maybe just genetics.

 

[Gabler]