Willow Oak

[mcpesq817]

Thought I'd start my own thread rather than clog up Dav4's willow oak thread.

I've been working on this willow oak for the past two and a half years -- I got it from my from my local nursery's pink tag sale, as it was marked down to a very low amount.

It's gone from a 25' tall tree that ultimately was chopped to 20" or so, root worked heavily as the roots were a mess in the nursery container it came in, and has been in the ground the past year and a half while I grow out the various branches into a spreading trunk style tree. The last picture is from December 2011, before it went int the ground. I've been pretty impressed at how it's taken so much abuse in the last two years without blinking an eye.

 

[mcpesq817]

Just a warning in case anyone is thinking about buying a nursery willow oak and working it down. Getting it out of the nursery container and working the rootball down took me a good 6 hours to get it to fit in a cement tub (first pic below). I don't think I've ever been so sore as after I was done.

Last year, I used my die grinder to work the rootball down even further, but that took a good few hours as the roots are incredibly dense. I managed to work one half completely, and most of the other side as well. The tree doesn't seem to have noticed, as the new branches are a good inch thick and four feet tall already this year. I'm just hoping I can get it out of the ground in a year or two after the primary branches have thickened up some more. I did plant it on a bunch of ceramic plates, so hopefully it's not able to push any tap roots down.