How to tell a tree collected in autumn has survived?

[One First Matter All]

Sure you can collect in Autumn, but unless you know how to care for what you've collected, your wasting your time and killing trees for no real reason. There will be folks who will tell you that process will teach you how to collect. I don't think that's true. Collecting in spring teaches you more, since the tree is actually growing after you collect it, has more resources and is more responsive.

I appreciate you taking the time to post, but some of what you said seems to be undercut by your final statement. Collecting is not an either/or scenario. I can collect in the fall and the spring. Each might teach me different things. From what you say, it sounds as though I might be in for some disappointment with regard to the tree I collected this year. I'm ok with that. Luckily, that disappointment will turn into more hope as spring arrives, and I get another chance to collect. So, while I appreciate your advice (and the link to some helpful Midwest-specific bonsai info!), I guess I don't get the huff. Everyone knows that getting really good at bonsai involves trial and error. Internet advice helps (assuming it's actual advice, not just finger-wagging), but it cannot replace hands-on experience.

Also, the article I posted suggests that collecting now does not mean waiting for the roots to grow: "The roots of deciduous trees are very active in the late Summer and throughout the Autumn." Unless UK roots are different than American roots, I'm going to trust that the roots are going to do their best to get in shape for winter. They (and I) might not succeed. The fact that roots continue grow into the autumn dilutes your other points (need for better storage, for instance), which start from the premise that roots do not grow at that time.

 

[ghues]

We all have different experiences which is in many ways based on where we live. In the PNW we’ve collected with success until mid October. This was based on others going before us......trying different collection techniques.
Try or attempt to collect in your area, but be very aware of the many recommendations in some of the posts above.

 

[rockm]

I appreciate you taking the time to post, but some of what you said seems to be undercut by your final statement. Collecting is not an either/or scenario. I can collect in the fall and the spring. Each might teach me different things. From what you say, it sounds as though I might be in for some disappointment with regard to the tree I collected this year. I'm ok with that. Luckily, that disappointment will turn into more hope as spring arrives, and I get another chance to collect. So, while I appreciate your advice (and the link to some helpful Midwest-specific bonsai info!), I guess I don't get the huff. Everyone knows that getting really good at bonsai involves trial and error. Internet advice helps (assuming it's actual advice, not just finger-wagging), but it cannot replace hands-on experience.

Also, the article I posted suggests that collecting now does not mean waiting for the roots to grow: "The roots of deciduous trees are very active in the late Summer and throughout the Autumn." Unless UK roots are different than American roots, I'm going to trust that the roots are going to do their best to get in shape for winter. They (and I) might not succeed. The fact that roots continue grow into the autumn dilutes your other points (need for better storage, for instance), which start from the premise that roots do not grow at that time.

You miss the point. Not undercutting anything. You can collect ANY TIME YOU WANT. IF you do, you have to understand what the aftercare is or the plant dies. Collecting trees is mostly a bad idea for those just getting started in bonsai, as you have no experience with caring for trees. Collection requires a set of skills separate from bonsai skills. Aftercare is where collected trees die. Most don't die immediately after they're dug. They're killed in the ensuing 2-3 after they've been dug up, by inadequate care.

And FWIW, yeah American roots are different from English roots, they're 3,000 miles apart and not the same species...

The huff is because, like a lot of beginners, you seem to be looking for justification for your impatience, not knowledge. I've simply advised what you're doing probably isn't going to work and is a waste of time for you at this point.

I've been collecting trees HERE IN THE U.S. in climates that are similar to yours for going on 25 years. Do what you want. If you do, don't collect the best tree, collect the one of the same species next to it. The one you dig up is most likely not going to pull through. Most first time collections don't work out...

 

[Dav4]

So, to answer the original question.... if the leaves are undergoing normal abscission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscission, then the branch is still alive. A more dire sign is the leaves browning/withering on the branch but not falling away to expose the set buds for next spring's growth... typically, a branch with all leaves crispy but still attached is dead. After that, you can look for signs of the cambium drying up, which includes crinkling of the non corky bark, plus or minus a darkening of the bark... again, this usually means that branch is dead. Beyond that, you'll have to wait until spring...

 

[One First Matter All]

So, to answer the original question.... if the leaves are undergoing normal abscission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscission, then the branch is still alive. A more dire sign is the leaves browning/withering on the branch but not falling away to expose the set buds for next spring's growth... typically, a branch with all leaves crispy but still attached is dead. After that, you can look for signs of the cambium drying up, which includes crinkling of the non corky bark, plus or minus a darkening of the bark... again, this usually means that branch is dead. Beyond that, you'll have to wait until spring...

Thank you! Just what I was looking for.

 

[Woocash]

I hear you. But "vast swathes" of the U.S. only covers a small portion of the U.S.--we're pretty swathy. Lately, in Indiana, the winters really haven't been too bad--one of the perks of climate change, I suppose. Interestingly enough, the temps he describes on the webpage ("By September in the UK, night temperatures have dropped to the low double figures") are actually colder than here.

I dare say so, but whereas we will probably only get to 3 or 4 below max for a day or two you guys will likely get colder for much longer. That’s when it would more likely be problematic.

I like Dav4’s answer though. Most of the time you can literally see where the life has drained from a branch or a twig or even the trunk, depending on thickness of bark. It doesn’t take long for the tree to remove water/nutrients and divert them elsewhere so twigs go hard and brittle very quickly.

Maybe go and find a tree with leaves still on and study a branch with both dead and alive growth on it. If you look close enough you’ll see the subtle differences.

 

[leatherback]

3 or 4 below max for a day or two

C? F? K?

I think you refer to C?

 

[Woocash]

C? F? K?

I think you refer to C?

Ah yes definitely the C.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

("By September in the UK, night temperatures have dropped to the low double figures") are actually colder than here.

Not if they are talking celsius and you are thinking farenheit... which they are.

 

[leatherback]

Not if they are talking celsius and you are thinking farenheit... which they are.

Yup, pretty much the point I was making.

International forum. Make sure you refer to things in the same units.
I mean, 12 might be very small. Unless it is inches.

 

[One First Matter All]

Not if they are talking celsius and you are thinking farenheit... which they are.

Hmm. You're right to say I was thinking F, but the calculation for C doesn't really change things that much. The low tonight here is 56F, tomorrow night is 59F, and Saturday night is 63F, which translates to 13C, 15C, and 17C--ie, a "low double figure" amount. So, not colder than Indiana right now but about right on par.

 

[One First Matter All]

[/QUOTE]

The huff is because, like a lot of beginners, you seem to be looking for justification for your impatience, not knowledge. I've simply advised what you're doing probably isn't going to work and is a waste of time for you at this point.

I've been collecting trees HERE IN THE U.S. in climates that are similar to yours for going on 25 years. Do what you want. If you do, don't collect the best tree, collect the one of the same species next to it. The one you dig up is most likely not going to pull through. Most first time collections don't work out...

[/QUOTE]

@rockm , I don't doubt that you're quite experienced at bonsai, and, like I said initially, I appreciate you taking the time to offer advice--so long as it's advice and not finger-wagging/naysaying. I do find it deeply ironic, though, that someone who starts a sentence with the "huff is because" ends the sentence by claiming I am the one without patience.

I may not have patience for bonsai; I like to think I do, but maybe I don't. I get the sense, though, that you do not have the patience to teach. So, here's some advice for you. This is a bonsai forum--part bonsai, part forum. You seem to have the bonsai part down. The forum part? Maybe not--I don't know. The best ideas are only as good as the medium through which they are conveyed. Work on your medium, and you might find the message resonates a whole better.

I say none of this out of anger. I wish you well! But I do plan to keep posting on this forum, and I would prefer if you either (1) refrained from commenting on my posts in the future or (2) commented in a way that helped me learn bonsai without the browbeating. Let's refine our trees, but let's also refine our words, shall we? Look and you'll find there's beauty in both.

 

[leatherback]

(1) refrained from commenting on my posts in the future or (2) commented in a way that helped me learn bonsai without the browbeating

My advice to you.. Read the content, not the tone. This is an international forum with thousands of members. Each with their unique way of communicating. If you cannot deal with that, maybe forums are not your thing. I do not know. But you might find that you get a lot more valuable information if you just accept the people as they are.

The advice given was relevant and to the point. Something for you to ponder and draw conclusions from. The way a good teacher makes a pupil stop, turn around and go.. Hang on a second. You have spent more time thinking about what @rockm has posted than on any of the other comments in this thread. That should be telling. It triggered something in you.

No need to go telling off people over the form they choose to convey messages in.

 

[One First Matter All]

My advice to you.. Read the content, not the tone. This is an international forum with thousands of members. Each with their unique way of communicating. If you cannot deal with that, maybe forums are not your thing. I do not know. But you might find that you get a lot more valuable information if you just accept the people as they are.

The advice given was relevant and to the point. Something for you to ponder and draw conclusions from. The way a good teacher makes a pupil stop, turn around and go.. Hang on a second. You have spent more time thinking about what @rockm has posted than on any of the other comments in this thread. That should be telling. It triggered something in you.

No need to go telling off people over the form they choose to convey messages in.

Nah, not triggered in the least. Let's be real for a second. This is a forum where people--mostly men, it seems--come to talk about little trees. To get "triggered" here would be the height of insecurity, I should think. As to what he said, I did think quite a lot about it--enough to do more research on the subject, in fact. Maybe you assume I was insincere when I said I appreciate his comments?

As to the advice given, some of it was relevant, but much of it was not. If you'll go back to my original post and @rockm 's original comment, you'll find that his very first comment falls under the category of "unsolicited advice"--his statement that I should not collect in fall had nothing to do with my question about how to tell if a tree has died.

As to forums, I am not willing to trade civil discourse to gain the "valuable" information of which you speak, especially when that same information can be acquired from equally talented people but without the browbeating. To be clear, I am not asking him or the forum to change; I am merely asking him to refrain from commenting on my posts if he finds himself unable to accommodate my very modest request--a request, I should add, that followed numerous requests from him about how I should do bonsai. Seems like a small "ask," no?

 

[leatherback]

I am not asking him or the forum to change;

I think you ask people to decide in which threads they should and should not post. Is that not asking them to change? If yu post in a forum, it is open to others to respond. That is the nature of forums.

browbeating

I think you are being overly sensitive here. Everybody communicates in their ownstyle. I personally try to hold back my directness because I know that my culture is known for not sugar coating and that people get mightily offended when I talk to people the way "we dutchies" communicate. Still people get offended. I could also make the very small request that people are not offended. Yet people do not choose to be a certain way. They just are.

 

[One First Matter All]

I think you ask people to decide in which threads they should and should not post. Is that not asking them to change? If yu post in a forum, it is open to others to respond. That is the nature of forums.


I think you are being overly sensitive here. Everybody communicates in their ownstyle. I personally try to hold back my directness because I know that my culture is known for not sugar coating and that people get mightily offended when I talk to people the way "we dutchies" communicate. Still people get offended. I could also make the very small request that people are not offended. Yet people do not choose to be a certain way. They just are.

Thanks for engaging with me, @leatherback . In response, I'd say that I'm not asking anyone to change; I'm asking someone to be himself somewhere else.

You seem to assume that forums are laissez-faire spaces where "anything goes and if you don't like it leave." I don't see forums that way, and, if you'll look around this forum, I think you'll find that the vast majority of posters don't either. As you said yourself, you modify your own tone to suit the setting. Everybody does communicate in their own style. Style is one thing; incivility another.

But maybe you're right. Maybe forums aren't for me. I've had a good time on Bonsainut so far and hope to continue! But I'm not so attached to the idea that I won't consider leaving if it seems the community cannot provide support to its member and uphold a baseline of civility in the process.

 

[leatherback]

incivility

it is also culturally determined. Which means that in a global form everybody needs to accomodate.

 

[penumbra]

I'd say that I'm not asking anyone to change; I'm asking someone to be himself somewhere else.

To be clear, you are coming to this site freshly and asking others who have been here many years to go somewhere else? Am I reading this clearly?
I have found a few very valuable people here to be a bit blunt at times and I certainly will never agree with the philosophy that drives others. I have bumped heads a few times here but no concussions occurred.
My advice to you as a newbie, or as a human being, is simply to listen more and talk less.
I understand where you are coming from ... I have been there as have many many others.
Take a deep breath, we don't want to lose you.

 

[Woocash]

Social media platforms have algorithms which only show you information it thinks you want to see based on previous choices in order to sustain your interest and maintain your attention for longer, showing more advertising as a result (ching, ching, ching, the business model). This has created a culture where misinformation and lies have become fact in the eyes of large groups of people. Now they are brainwashed, not by the intended ideals of creators of the algorithms, but by themselves because those ideas release more endorphins than the less comforting content.

Forums don’t work like that. Information is not offered for a profit so turning off the inconvenient stuff is not really an option. You shouldn’t just believe only what you want to hear.

 

[leatherback]

You shouldn’t just believe only what you want to hear.

Why not. The others are just wrong