Five Year Native Tree Challenge: Gabler's Mountain Laurel

Gabler

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Kalmia latifolia are supposedly tricky to transplant. Nonetheless, I'm gonna give it a try, since I consider it a quintessential native species to my area. If you look closely, this particular specimen has some green starting to grow from closer to the base of the trunk. I figure this could be an individual plant willing to back bud if I keep it healthy. Hopefully I can get it through the year upon collection.

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Gabler

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The mountain laurel pictured above, it turns out, is part of a much larger plant. A trunk dipped down to ground level and leaves and soil covered part of it, so it's actually just the tip of a huge plant. There was no way I was getting it out of the ground in such a condition that it would survive. I found another, smaller plant growing on top of a vein of clay overhanging a cliff along a river. The rootball was relatively small but rich with mycelium.

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Gabler

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Here's the mountain laurel when I got it back home and potted it up. It was a long walk, since I dug the tree up in the "open space" adjoining my parents' property owned by the people in the neighborhood as tenants in common. Most residents use it for hunting or riding four-wheelers. A few make use of the little boat ramp, though the water is too shallow for anything that draws more than about a foot. I suspect I'm the only one who has used the land for collecting bonsai material.

Fortunately, when I got back home, the tree was easy to deal with. I shook loose the clay and mixed some "Kiryzuna" soil and tree mast into the mycelium. The rootball fit neatly into the pictured pot. It was just dumb luck. I didn't measure before digging or anything. The leaves are a bit ragged after a hard, windy winter on an east-facing cliff, but the roots and branches all seem to be in good health.


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Gabler

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Lastly, I trimmed off a few sickly branches and repositioned a few healthier branches. The younger branches are very flexible, so I probably could have used a thinner wire, but the three millimeter wire is what I had on hand. The older branches are stiff, but elastic. They aren't so brittle that they crack, let alone snap, when bent with a fair amount of force.

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Esolin

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Nice specimen. Hope it does well. :)
 

Gabler

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I tried to get a better picture, but I'm not sure this is actually any more clear.

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Kanorin

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Very cool. How's it doing? I saw some super cool gnarly ones hiking in the catskill mountains last week.
 

Gabler

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Very cool. How's it doing? I saw some super cool gnarly ones hiking in the catskill mountains last week.

It’s doing great. Put out tons of new growth, and back-budding like crazy. Better than I can say for some of my beeches collected this spring. This unusually hot summer has been hard on them, but the mountain laurel is flourishing. I think the trick is just to find one small enough that you can collect tons of roots.
 

Gabler

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As I think about it, the aborted branches were partially covered in straw. I suspect these trees need good sunlight through the winter months.
 

Gabler

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I pruned her up a bit and slipped her into a grow bag to foster more vigorous root growth through better drainage/aeration. Growth last year was adequate to sustain the tree through winter, which is great for a freshly-collected tree, but I‘m gonna need more vigorous growth in order to enough development accomplished in the next four years to even consider this tree as a final contest entry.
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At the moment, I’m leaning toward using a semi-cascade pot in the final design.
 

KateM

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How did this tree do this year?
 

Gabler

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How did this tree do this year?

It's been dead for over a year now. For one, I was messing with it too much. A year after collection, I moved it into a grow bag, thinking that would help it develop faster, but I should have left it in the mica pot I originally placed it in. I also pruned off a major branch I didn't like, and that couldn't have helped an already weak tree.

On top of that, I moved to Wilmington at the end of 2021, and I didn't realize just how bad the municipal water is. It comes from the Brandywine River, which is extremely polluted by Pennsylvania agricultural runoff. It's a Simpson's Movie situation, with fish that are unsafe to eat, etc. That means they have to treat it with lots of chemicals and filtration to make it safe to drink. On top of that, they boost the pH to an absurd degree to protect against lead poisoning from old lead pipes that are still part of the water grid. That's good for the residents because it'll prevent a Flint, Michigan, situation, but it's bad for ericaceous plants.
 
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