yew stump

pwk5017

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im going to get some pictures by tomorrow, but i wanted to get some opinions on the toughness of english yews. I was doing a bid at a local residence and i noticed several yew stumps against the house. As i continued conversation with the owner i observed that all looked dead except one. The stump has one shoot on it and a dried out root ball. I plan on soaking the rootball in a bucket over night, but if it has one shoot is the whole thing alive or just part? I suppose if only half the plant is dead i can carve the other side....pics to come though!
 

henshaw

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I guess you've nothing to lose. Late winter I picked up a grubbed up yew stump that had been out of the ground for a few days or so and *appeared* pretty dry with not much rootball to speak of, but with a few green shoots of green. It's now pushing out growth all over quite happily.
 

pwk5017

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well, i have no idea how long it was out of the ground, but it was sitting in the shade with one forlorn looking shoot. Further analysis today shows it has 3-4 more buds on the stump so i think things are looking solid. This thing is an absolute mess, but it has a 5-6" diameter trunk so i wont give up on it yet. The root ball somehow has the original burlap from when it was planted. Once the plant starts putting out shoots should i consider removing the burlap and most of the clay soil or should i let it sit until next year before i touch the roots?
 

pwk5017

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ok here are the pics from last night. I havent really thought of styling yet, because i was more concerned with reviving it first. I will wait patiently the next couple days to see if the buds i spotted earlier sprout.
 

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henshaw

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I'll happily defer to anyone with a bit more experience ;) - but I'd be inclined to play safe and not fiddle too much this year, although heavy clay isn't going to be doing it many favours.
Since it looks like most of the burlap's exposed, it might be worth carefully cutting off the burlap that you can, without cutting/disturbing any roots inside it. I think I'd leave prising off the clay to at least next year and see what growth it puts on in the meantime.

I've several olives that were originally in clay, safest way to remove it seemed to be putting them in a container of water and carefully work it away from the roots with the fingers 'cos it was so sticky. A couple were really fiddly since the pot was goldfish-bowl shaped with not much finger-room ! Not sure how much root I lost in the process but at least olives are pretty hardy (tho' I'm cursing at the moment, here in the the UK we had a relatively hard winter for once, and some of my olives have lost all their leaves...the branches are mostly still green, so I'm hopeful....)
 
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