New Beech

[Jzack605]

I had a half day at work and decided to stop at an old nursery on my way home. This is a great nursery with a mix of field grown and potted landscape material. After a quick walk I knew I’d want either a small pendulous Ginko or one of the field grown beech.

After hearing that this particular tree was grown from seed, and a special variety (although we won’t know until leaf out) I decided on just this tree. They were kind enough to dig it that day and load it in my truck.

I see where I would like to make one larger cut and would create a really nice potential tree. But I’m curious what others say about air layering. My research says it’s anywhere from difficult to easy. One image shows where I would like to make the main cut.

 

[Juanmi]

That's a sexy beech

 

[Scorpius]

Noice!!!!!!

 

[Mike Westervelt]

Nice find, whack it at the blue line and you're almost there!

 

[Shogun610]

Ok foist, get the tree into a shallow grow box , then look at the tree and judging from the best base/ nebari choose the front. AFTER choosing the front , pick the best trunk line.. then go from there with proceeding to remove branches that don’t fit the overall silhouette

 

[Scorpius]

Ok foist, get the tree into a shallow grow box , then look at the tree and judging from the best base/ nebari choose the front. AFTER choosing the front , pick the best trunk line.. then go from there with proceeding to remove branches that don’t fit the overall silhouette

I would wait to remove branches till next year, but I'm risk averse with big stress events on my trees.

 

[rockm]

If you're putting the tree into a flatter container, see what kind of field soil it's in. I'd bet it's a mess. I've had B&B trees that came with all clay at the roots...you're going to have to be careful with watering the combined backfill bonsai soil and the field soil.

If this were mine, I'd consider taking a root hook and a hose to the soil-- barerooting it and doing some initial root work. That's just me though...Beech can be a little touchier than some deciduous tress about that.

 

[Jzack605]

Nice find, whack it at the blue line and you're almost there!

View attachment 478171

Yep! That’s where I planned on making the major cut.

 

[Jzack605]

Plan right now is to bare root it, or at least partially and put it into either a grow bag or large nursery pot with the nebari exposed. And then make that larger cut that is marked.

In a season or two I’ll put it into bonsai soil and a better pot.

 

[Mike Westervelt]

Agree 100% roots are first priority, leaving all or most of the foliage to drive new root growth for this year.

 

[Jzack605]

The story is this tree was planted by seed and not touched for a long time along with the rest of the Beech in the block. I’m expecting the roots to be pretty good due to that. This one was the smallest of the row, others had reached 12’. In discussion with the nursery woman she thinks it’s just a much slower growing variety.

 

[Jzack605]

Well the tree was too big for any of the grow pots I had so it went into the ground for this year. Did a bit of top work too.