Yamadori Potential!

[Si Nguyen]

Hi guys, we have a massive urban yamadori potential coming up in Newport Beach. I am talking to a guy who is ripping out his entire Japanese garden with a ton of perfect pines and junipers and boxwoods and boulders. They are all free! The problem is there is too much and we cant pick and choose. All or none! I have offered to pay for the individual trees, but he is still thinking about that. The guy is rich I think, and a few hundred dollars dont interest him. If there were more of us, then we can divide up the yard and collect them all for free. So I am thinking about getting a few people together. I could afford to hire a contractor and take everything, but my wife will divorce me. Which might not be such a bad idea .
Any ideas?
We need to move fast on this one.
Si

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Do we have a photo to help us gauge the size of the job? Even an address? (So we can Google the lot?)

Is he looking to remove all the landscaping (including removing the rootsballs?) Realistically, we're talking two or three threes per person if we have to dig them out per hand (max).

Best would be if he hired someone to remove everything, and we had the opportunity to pick and choose the day before the destruction...

 

[Attila Soos]

Well, keep me in the loop. I am only about 35-40 minutes away from Newport Beach.

 

[Yamadori]

I wish I was there.

 

[Si Nguyen]

I wish I was there.

Yamadori, we would invite you along, just for good luck!

 

[Si Nguyen]

Well, keep me in the loop. I am only about 35-40 minutes away from Newport Beach.

Well Atilla, since this is the Orange County Study Group, you would have to be a member first before we can let you go yamadori hunting with us. Do you want to join? It is very easy. Just pass the initiation and we will accept you. We eagerly await your response.
Si Nguyen
Self-appointed Leader of the Gang

 

[Tink32]

If I only lived in CA... "sigh"

 

[Bill S]

Tink don't get down, urban yamadori is just about everywhere, all you need is to look around, and have the nerve to stop and ask.

 

[rockm]

Tink,

For what it's worth, some of the things that are available to us here on the East Coast would make Californians cry.

Boxwood, in particular, have been grown in this region for over 350 years now. The first were planted in 1652 in Long Island.

http://www.boxwoodsociety.org/about_boxwood.htm

Old and even ancient, boxwood allees still survive, especially in areas that had colonial and civil war era estates--

http://www.gunstonhall.org/grounds/landscape_features/boxwood_allee_lg.jpg

From Northern Va., the Northern Neck, down to Williamsburg, old boxwood (and a lot of other old landscape plants) are everywhere.

The list of famous gardens is very long and digging in them probably isn't do-able:
http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/register.htm

But smaller, local, historical sites (or homes) contain attainable potensai. If your area is like mine, you can't swing a cat without hitting some local historic site, or an old house. There are literally thousands of homes that are 200 years old or older in Va....Scores are privately owned and have original plantings--I've seen 120 year old azaleas here in the yards of some older houses...Old wisteria are so common it's laughable. All you have to do to find one of those is look in the woods in late April. The blue blooms can lead to some extremely nice trunks...

Scroll down to second photo (even though this one's apparently in N.J.--I've seen wisteria like this in the woods growing wild here in Va.):
http://www.defenders.org/programs_a.../private_lands/living_lands/2009_projects.php

There is no shortage of spectacular collectible landscape material around these parts. All you have to do is know where to look and whom to ask about collection. Demolition companies, Landscaping companies, nurseries and neighbors can all be sources.

 

[Si Nguyen]

Hi everybody, yes, urban yamadori is indeed everywhere. One just have to keep looking and don't be shy. Most people just don't know that there are people like us who would hate to see a good tree stump go to waste. They have no idea that their trees can be saved.

Thanks to Rockm for those urban yamadori links. I live in California and still has some massive boxwoods, Ilex vomitoria hollies, and wisterias waiting for me to dig in my old neighborhood in Texas. My old neighbors are still waiting patiently for the day of my return to dig up their trees and bushes.

In Southern California, the new homeowners will always rip out the old landscaping to replace them with palm trees for a Spanish or Mediterranean style garden which is in fashion now. So Japanese black pines and junipers are usually the first to go. If one sits at the dump, one will see these tree stumps coming in all day long. Don't ask me how I know.

Go save them trees!
Si

 

[Si Nguyen]

BTW, here are some pics from this home. There are 4-5 very well trimmed Japanese Black pines, olives, and a ton of trimmed junipers. But the homeowner do not want to deal with a bunch of different people coming to dig for trees and rocks. He just wants to deal with one person or company who can collect everything, down to the last small pebble, for free. That's the problem. It does not cost that much for me to hire a landscaper to remove everything, but I have no more space to put all that. I would have been happy to pay to collect just a few trees, but he won't allow it.
It's probably a no-go at this point. I will keep some of you updated.
Si

 

[rockm]

"the new homeowners will always rip out the old landscaping to replace them"

Sad but true. I once saw a five foot tall Japanese maple with at least a seven inch nebari (the tree had to have been at least 30 years old) sitting in a ditch beside a "tear down" house. Been there for quite some time unfortunately and was completely dead or I would have chunked it in the truck . The 1950's era original ranch home had been bulldozed and replaced with a colonial that had a bigger "footprint" on the lot. Happens all the time here...

I've been looking for this link for quite some time after reading about this guy several years ago. He's basically collecting specimen landscape plants from old properties and reselling them. His boxwood is pretty typical of what can come up in looking into old landscapes--reducing and collecting them isn't really that difficult believe it or not...

http://oldplants.com/boxwoods.html

Click on photos...

 

[Si Nguyen]

That's a nice website Rockm. Thanks for the link. Those guys are professionals! We do have old tree collecting companies here in Southern California, but they only want palm trees. They would even pay a lot of money for it if it's really nice. Anything else, you would have to pay them to dig up and destroy. They don't save anything but palm trees here, because there is no market for anything else. Even olives are no longer saved, because there is too much being grown in big boxes already.
Si

 

[rockm]

The thing is, this guy's basically doing what we're doing--asking homeowners for their old landscape plants...only he's offering money and selling to a deep pockets crowd.

Notice how shallow the root masses are on ALL his trees...compared to top growth...provides a clue as to how tough trees really are and how they can be treated in our collection efforts.

 

[plant_dr]

Just this morning I asked the groundskeeper at school if I could collect an old burning bush from in front of the building that I've had my eye on for awhile. It gets mangled by the skid steer all the time when they snow-plow the sidewalks so it looks kind of shabby for their landscaping. He said I could just bring my shovel and dig it up! I asked him for two different plants and he said I could have one but not the other, as it wasn't looking as bad.

Anyway, it was a very big confidence booster for me. That was the first time I've approached anyone like that for an urban yamadori and it worked! I just hope I can collect it right and keep it alive! The other one had a better trunk, but this one will be really good too. It's pretty old and gnarly already.

 

[Attila Soos]

Well Atilla, since this is the Orange County Study Group, you would have to be a member first before we can let you go yamadori hunting with us. Do you want to join? It is very easy. Just pass the initiation and we will accept you. We eagerly await your response.
Si Nguyen
Self-appointed Leader of the Gang

Me thinks that I should do that. You guys are fun to be around, anyway.
(I hope that there is no hazing involved, in the initiation process).

So, yeah, I am in.
(may be one day, we can make history - isn't this how John Naka started his famous bonsai club, in his backyard?)

 

[Si Nguyen]

Me thinks that I should do that. You guys are fun to be around, anyway.
(I hope that there is no hazing involved, in the initiation process).

So, yeah, I am in.
(may be one day, we can make history - isn't this how John Naka started his famous bonsai club, in his backyard?)

Yeah, we are starting a famous bonsai club
You are almost in. Yeah, now that you have seen the trees that you could possibly get.

We have conferred and decided you need to go through the initiation. No hazing involved. Just some easy homeworks.

So, since this is Orange County, the land of The Duke, Mega churches, and the one place that didn't vote for Obama, the initiation requires you to watch FOX NEWS for a week, all of it, including Glenn Beck and Bill O'reilly. Once you have completed this task, which you must do with your whole heart and mind, and in the full presence of your liberal family members and friends, then you can join us.
What say you? Still want in?

 

[Attila Soos]

So, since this is Orange County, the land of The Duke, Mega churches, and the one place that didn't vote for Obama, the initiation requires you to watch FOX NEWS for a week, all of it, including Glenn Beck and Bill O'reilly. Once you have completed this task, which you must do with your whole heart and mind, and in the full presence of your liberal family members and friends, then you can join us.
What say you? Still want in?

Hey, my best friend was from Diamond Bar, and another from Fallbrook - not much sympathy for Obama in those places.
I am not much of a TV person, but how about trading Fox news with listening to Rush Limbaugh while I'm driving? I think it's a fair trade.

(BTW, both Glenn Beck and I hate communists, I can tell you that because I lived behind the curtain for 30 years)

 

[Tink32]

Tink don't get down, urban yamadori is just about everywhere, all you need is to look around, and have the nerve to stop and ask.

Bill,

I was just implying that I wouldnt mind helping Si out with the collecting and maybe get some trees for myself. there is definitely plenty of yamadori in my area, including my front yard and the wooded area behind my house. I was just trying to be funny thats all. I do appreciate you keeping my spirits up though

 

[Tink32]

Rock,

Thank you for the great links. there is alot of historical sites in my area as well. 1 of my clubs did a collecting trip up in Yorktown and Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately I had to work. I heard they collected plenty of hornbeams. I will keep an eye out for some wisteria come April, and there is quite a few areas being developed for housing and shopping centers, so there is all kinds of potential places to find yamadori. I appreciate the insight, and I look forward to finding some yamadori in the near future