I have a huge Crepe Myrtle I need to dig up growing against the house. Chopped that thing down for several years now hoping it would just die, but man is it resilient. Decided I'm just going to dig it up next spring and bonsai it. Now watch it decide to die on me next year.
Just an FYI, crepe Myrtle are tough trees, if you’ve never dug one their wood is crazy hard, you will need serious saws to go thru the tap roots. Here’s a pro tip if your digging in spring go ahead and take a sawzall this fall and cut a circular cut around the trunk to cut some of the big roots they may sprout some feeder roots over winter to help survival when you dig.
Oh my goodness! I'm laughing because this is exactly what I'd do if I was even remotely strong enough. So pleased for you Jelle. Thank you for all the hints and techniques you explained. Though my 3 inch yamadoris require less finesse, I've learned a lot that I can use on future re-pots. Fingers and toes crossed for a mild winter and great recovery!
I helped an elderly neighbor remove a similar plant. She was so happy when I removed the plant and tidied up the landscape area. Oh, she was so very, very thankful. (She didn't understand why I was grinning from ear to ear:) Maybe she thought I was the most kind neighbor in the world. I'm a nice guy, but I did have a selfish motive.
I recenly got a big boxwood out of the garden myself too (huge nebari!!). It's spring here but it started budding very quickly and now they're a very healthy tree with lots of new growth. Excited to see your project with that species too!!
Good luck. I always used a lot of liquid seaweed . . . might have helped, didn't hurt, though my digs usually had more foliage. Often encountered heavy clay soil digging Ashe junipers, too risky to remove most soil as you did. We did sometimes bore holes in rootball and filled with coarse substrate to promote aeration and encourage new root growth. This is a more-than-one-year process!
Glad to see someone else in the same boat about the partners requests and finding bigger material. I have a couple, almost as big as yours, boxwoods, and have been in a box for two year. They have recovered quite well in that time and plan to hard prune them in the spring to hopefully produce a new hot flush and bring down the silhouette to where I want to be. Good luck with your new nonpurchased plant and look forward to some updates.
To be fair, my partner is not holding me back in the number or size of trees. It is me who feels the collection is too big! She jokingly said I should start the video with this intro.
Curious to see how you get on with this one, Jelle ! It looks to be a really nice starting point for a cool bonsaï down the road, so hopefully it will recover rapidly !
Really cool project Jelle. Beautiful big trunk and maybe even broader below the second rootspread. I hope it will survive and curious what it will look like in the future. 👍🏻
Tree has a very high chance of survival in my opinion. Tons of fine roots and you potted it the best possible way. I've started soaking trees in Superthrive for a few minutes when potting them up if I think they might need a bit of a boost. Thanks for another great video!
Next few weeks it will stay relatively warm. ENough for the roots to settle in I hope. After that is it just hoping the reserves bring it over to spring!
Hi Jelle a monster, the main thing is doing the basics as your doing, remove what you want and get rid of what you Don't, pot it up with a course open substaight and leave it to recover in a sheltered area. Good luck turning it into a great bonsai tree in maybe five or so years time.
I've done three huge digs: a Juniper and two Colorado Blue Spruce.... so far just the latest Spruce is alive but I won't know how well until next summer. Each was a ton of work but zero cost. I'm not one to turn down free trees but it's only worth it if it survives. I'm sure you'll have more luck with this Boxwood.
Always good to get free trees given to you or come from the wild because it dies it’s not cost you anything great as always Jelle Thanks again for subscribing to my channel. It’s an honour to have your own board. Thanks again.❤(Dave)
@@GrowingBonsai was not meant as criticism just as an addition to your technique. Especially because garden soil is often very sticky. Nice yardadori btw. 👍🙏
We dug out 11 Mugo Pines this year of this size or bigger from a hedge of a building that will get demolished. Spectacular material. Took us 3 days. Unfortunately, only one made it and of course it was the worst one of the whole bunch. Devastating tbh. Hope you have better luck with this one, but it looks really healthy and decidious is easier to dig than Pines.
A couple of suggestions for prepping big material: 1) Make cuts with a reciprocating saw and pruning blades made for cutting green wood, not a chainsaw. Reciprocating saws with proper blades cut much cleaner than chainsaws. 2) Try cleaning out the field soil with a moderate blast of water, not a pressure washer, which can be too harsh. Instead, a hose end jet sprayer is ideal. I often use both to reduce large dense rootballs when repotting. This specimen has a good chance of survival. Nice find, but it took your initiative to bring it home and give it a go. At least you didn't have to dig it up yourself, so you lucked out there!
What a coincidence I dug out some 100 yr old boxwoods here in an old Seattle neighborhood this yr as well. I do want to see what you decide to do with yours.
I probably lost a box in my garden. I wanted to pot it up next year and already used a spade to dig all around and reduced the foliage a bit. But now the foliage is completely dead. I really hope it will get new growth but as it is an evergreen I prepare for the worst.
Why was your neighbour removing the box? You see a lot of people replacing box hedging in the uk (often with taxus) because box gets hammered by blight and the box moth caterpillar
