I'm the New Caretaker for an Old Larch Grove, looking for insight.

Rivka

Shohin
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Some people have no tact, Maybe go with a larger shallower pot, you could add in a few more "young" larches to round out the edges to make it more Forrest like with these at the front. My Mom had a great forest and it was pretty old, slowly died off, she never repotted since she owned it, I tried to save it but it was too far gone.
Im not going to go that far, who knows what their plan was long ago.
I do think About adding some additional trees some day, but good trees next to bad ones doesn’t fix the bad ones, so I need to address the issues i have, not distract the veiwer
 

leatherback

The Treedeemer
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When I look at the new growth I wonder whether it is in full sun. Is it? It certainly should be :).

I would just leave them alone for the year. In winter, make a plan. But allow the plants to restore their roots, get them back to health.

but good trees next to bad ones doesn’t fix the bad ones,
To a certain extend they will. It might be a matter of trimming them back on top and adding some lover branches from younger plants. Larches in the middle of a grove do not have loads of low branches.
 

Bnana

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I agree with Leatherback, bigger trees in the center of a grove have few low branches and old larch do not have a clear leader. That's somewhat to pine, young trees are X-mas tree shaped with a clear top but older trees are flat.
These are great trees for the middle of a grove.
 

August44

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I live in an area that has millions of larches in the higher altitudes. I personally have not seen many larches in full sun...meaning by themselves, and just sitting in full sun all day. I think you are asking for a fry job, especially with the heatwave we are having this summer in the West. Most larches here are understory trees to start life and I think they would prefer filtered full sun or a shade cloth. Also, from what I have seen in the forest, if you want growth down low, chop the top and you will get monumental growth at the chop and you can select a new leader and start over. The forest service has a mower that they take down some roads in the forest here and mow all the small trees that are sprouting along the roads. A lot of trees (pines and larches) 1-2" are cut off and then go crazy with growth.
 

Rivka

Shohin
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@leatherback, what are you seeing that makes you think it needs more sun? It gets a lot of sun, only partially shaded in the hottest part or the day, since as @August44 mentioned, we having one record breaking heatwave after another this summer. It was over 110 for multiple days a few weeks ago and its nearly 100 again this weekend.
 

Rivka

Shohin
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Yeah i am super open to adding a few more plants, part of the reason i was so wanting too pin down what type of larch it was. I was looking at some larger western larches today at a good local nursery I frequent and it didn’t seem like the same trunk bark. I dont know if that is just an age thing, as mine are 60+ years, but the nursery examples were 8ft tall and fairly mature, so it seems like they would have started showing similar mature bark if they were going to
 

Rivka

Shohin
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Ill shift it over to more sun after this weekends heat wave simmers down. I topped the media with a layer of white pumice, so that should help keep the roots cool.
 

JackHammer

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It’s already cleaned up, and “worth it”? Its 60+ years old and has history, its just overgrown at the moment, of course it is worth it.
You guys are really pessimistic over some weeds.
I am glad that it turned out to be a good tree. Sometimes people are gifted crap and then have to deal with the crap. Just because it's old doesn't mean it can't be crap.
 

Rivka

Shohin
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I am glad that it turned out to be a good tree. Sometimes people are gifted crap and then have to deal with the crap. Just because it's old doesn't mean it can't be crap.
Yeah its interesting and worth working on for handful of reasons.
While it has it’s issues with how branches are laid out, I’m certainly going to learn a ton from it and it has a lot of things going for it as well.
 

WNC Bonsai

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Glad to see you got the crowns cleaned out a bit, they were developing into “storks nests” which is a common issue with larch. They are so apically dominant that it is hard to prevent them from becoming a mass of branches at the top which overpower the rest of the tree. Also although larch will backbud it becomes more unlkley once they start to bark over. So it is important to regularly keep pruning them back so the branches won’t get leggy. Good luck with it, you are making some nice progress.
 
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