Pitfalls of roadside collecting---- Eastern red cedar

[Joe Dupre']

Another nice tree almost ruined by the road crews. GGrrrrrrrrr... I topped this cedar earlier in the year and it responded with more vigorous growth. I passed by a few weeks ago and was met with total devastation. Everything along that stretch of highway was massacred. I didn't even bother to stop until today. Sure enough, the cedar had been mowed and pushed over......nearly uprooted. I came back and dug it up. Pretty decent base with some still-living branches down low. The root ball was pretty decent also. I spent 30 minutes cutting off all the dead shoots (plenty) and broken branches and potted it up. I looks like it threw out some back buds after the massacre, so that's encouraging. It's going to be a LOOOONNNGGG project if it lives.

 

[Housguy]

Nice save.

 

[Joe Dupre']

Nice save.

I hope I CAN save it.

 

[BonsaiDawg]

I hope I CAN save it.

Yes, I hope you can...Great Find!!

 

[Artistree]

Agreed, nice save.

I spent about five years locating wild yamadori along roadsides, field edges and other wood roads where I had permission to collect. I would record their location, prune them if necessary, and maybe use a landscape shovel to trench around the base to cut any large roots and begin to create a more compact rootball. Several I was able to follow through and collect in a season or two as originally planned. However, I was always surprised at how often my selected trees met their demise from some other person with a road clearing crew, on a tractor, skidsteer, pickup truck, pair of loppers, etc. You can find some neat stuff growing along roadsides that has been repeatedly bush-hogged back or otherwise anthropogenically insulted, but I have personally stopped trying to work on any material while it sits in such a vulnerable spot. If I want it, I get it ASAP within the appropriate collecting season of course.

 

[HoneyHornet]

Any progress did it make it

 

[Joe Dupre']

I had forgot about this one. Sadly, it hung on for a month or two and succumbed. I guess I had not gone down that road in a couple of weeks and it layed there, somewhat barerooted for that time. I do know of dozens of others, but maybe not as good a specimen as that one.