Saved Boxwood

cishepard

Shohin
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Location
Nanaimo, BC, Canada
USDA Zone
8
I just grabbed this shrub that was yanked out of the ground at a construction site. It is about 4’ tall and will obviously need a trunk chop at some point. A lot of the bark got ripped off and a couple of the stems are crushed. The bottom section of trunk where all the stems join is about 3.5” in diameter. I trimmed some of the longest roots and put it in a tub with a gritty bonsai mix. I would eventually like to get buds down near the thick section and develop a short, fat tree from there.
Should I chop the trunks now, to get all the insults over with at once, or leave it for a few seasons to recover first.
Thanks for any advice.0CAC4BDC-B91D-4D7F-8F1F-B4DB3C697425.jpeg
 

cishepard

Shohin
Messages
341
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Location
Nanaimo, BC, Canada
USDA Zone
8
Here is a better shot of the trunk - it has some potential, to my mind. And a full shot of the leaves waaay up above (if you can ignore the ivy backdrop). After doing a bunch of reading on boxwoods, I’m pretty sure it needs to hold on to all it’s greenery to recover and eventually backbud - a many years project. I will keep it in the shade, on the east side of my ivy covered potting bench and let it be ... with some ferts. I may clip off the left sub trunk, as it is the most crushed. Any opinions would be most welcomed :86CACB7E-45EB-434E-A908-36EF2DD75C0C.jpegB9AA278A-4F44-40C0-99DF-D732BB413E33.jpeg
 

Forsoothe!

Imperial Masterpiece
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This is not like "collected on purpose", with care. The first order of business is to save its life. Save all the green leaves and roots you can. If it lives, you can do all the bad stuff you want, someday.
 

Forsoothe!

Imperial Masterpiece
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About ten years ago I was driving down a road that was under construction. There was a subdivision court street that dead-ended at that road and someone had dumped 4 boxwoods that they had dug up by the side of the road at the end of the court. My internal garbageman clicked in and I made a U-turn and found a place I could park nearby. The four had been obviously planted for some years. They all had rootballs that had been shaped by the 2 1/2 gal nursery pots they were grown in for some years and almost no roots emeged out of that shape. They were in OK condition, but they looked like they had just parked and not grown at all in the ground. I threw them in my van and took them home and processed them into pre-bonsai pots. They all lived and I sold or traded 3 of them, keeping the best one for myself. They were flat-top hedge trimmed, and it has taken forever to grow a semi-round crown. I've horsed the branches down with guy wires for two years at a crack, several times, and have just come to accept that the branches are where they're going to be. Here is my Buxus sempervirons 'Lucky'...
BxS 2018_0518HostaSports20180011.JPGBxS Boxwood nebari.JPG
 
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