The black Frankenbougie

[SeanS]

Sitting in traffic on the way home one day I noticed some massive bougainvilleas growing on either side of the entrance to an abandoned property. On closer inspection I noticed the outside wall of the property was lined with boogies scattered every few meters. The property was really overgrown and so were the bougies, most of them looking a little worse for wear.

A bit of google streetview revealed the bougies were healthy and flowering nicely 2 years ago before the property really got overgrown.

My intended target tree



So the following Sunday I dragged my girlfriend with me to act as look out on my urbandori mission. Spade and loppers in hand I set off and came back to the car 10 minutes later with my rootless stump in a big poly sack.

Once home I noticed the entire tree was covered in some sort of black soot. The entire trunk and every branch was encrusted with the black residue. I still don’t know if there was a fire in the grass around the property or if it could be from the traffic passing the sidewalk. It’s quite a busy road so this is my guess. Anyway after repotting and watering it seemed to slowly wash off.

I lopped off some more roots until I could get the stump in a plastic pot. I initially planted the stump in 100% potting soil, but the next day I realized I wasn’t happy with the soil so dig the poor stump back out and repotted in a 60ish/40ish mix of sandy soil/potting soil. This seemed much better.

January 13, day of collecting:


2 weeks later after some more clean up and our pet rabbits learning how to jump into the pot to sample the bark



I watered the stump when I remembered and checked in it every few days.

This morning I woke up to a nice surprise while watering
(Note the new bunny-proofing)




I'll let it grow out for a year and then give it a big chop down to a small stump next winter, slowly reducing the roots over time to eventually fit in a bonsai pot.
It's got some ugly reverse taper near the base of the trunk, so I've left that dead branch that emerges from the base attached for now. Hopefully I can use that as some sort of deadwood feature to hide the reverse taper. Alternatively I could chop it RIGHT down to 2-3" tall and develop a really fat stocky shohin tree with a nice fat trunk. That might be the better way to go because of the taper.

Or It might just end up in my garden. It's still a cool tree, as long as I can get that black crap off the trunk over time.

 

[SeanS]

Growing
6 weeks since collection

 

[Stan Kengai]

You collected this without permission? And thought it was a good idea to post it on a public forum? I don't know what the laws are there, but at the very least this is unethical and quite possibly illegal.

 

[SeanS]

You collected this without permission? And thought it was a good idea to post it on a public forum?

Did you see my location? I highly doubt a missing plant from an overgrown abandoned property is high on our local authorities priority list.

The property has been empty and abandoned for a number of years. It's completely overgrown. There isn't even a house or any structure on the land. Besides the outside "boundary wall" which serves zero purpose because all of the gates and metal railings have been liberated, there's nothing there besides the overgrown plants. It was marked for development a while ago but the access from the only busy road passing the property is an issue so it was canned.

I'll snap some pics of the property on my way home today.

 

[Melospiza]

The black stuff is probably black sooty mould, a kind of fungus that grows on honeydew excreted by aphids feeding on the leaves above. It can be omnipresent in hot humid climates, but does not do any damage. It's the aphids that do that. You should be able to wash it off or it will fade on its own. When I lived in the southeast US, hackberry trees were very prone to it in summer.

 

[SeanS]

The black stuff is probably black sooty mould, a kind of fungus that grows on honeydew excreted by aphids feeding on the leaves above. It can be omnipresent in hot humid climates, but does not do any damage. It's the aphids that do that. You should be able to wash it off or it will fade on its own. When I lived in the southeast US, hackberry trees were very prone to it in summer.

there were definitely some aphids on the foliage that I removed when I collected. It’s definitely washing off on the lower part of the trunk. The top will eventually be chopped off soI just need the lower trunk clean in about a year.

Thanks for the info @Melospiza