Anyone interested in Chicago Yew Yamadori

[Dav4]

The flats I've been using are about that. To give you an idea of how aggressive you can be with these, here is a fairly big yew that I dug up in spring 2011 for free in response to a Craigslist ad (this is the smaller of the two I dug up at that time).

First picture shows the rootball after I brought it home and hosed it out. Like many yews, there were two planes of thick roots. The top plane of roots will end up as jins, so those ended up above the soil line. I was able to hack the rootball back so that I could fit it in a flat.

The next pictures show the tree in spring 2012 after additional root work. I was able to completely flatten the base, remove all the old thick roots, and get rid of all the remaining clay. You can see what kind of fine root growth I got after one year, even after hacking back the top the prior year. I also left it and the others out all winter, except for when the lows got below 20. They didn't miss a beat.

I don't know that you need to slowly adjust yours to full sun. If they were mine, I would just leave them out in full sun in the beginning of the season.

Great material...I wonder what it looks like now?

 

[fore]

The flats I've been using are about that. To give you an idea of how aggressive you can be with these, here is a fairly big yew that I dug up in spring 2011 for free in response to a Craigslist ad (this is the smaller of the two I dug up at that time).

First picture shows the rootball after I brought it home and hosed it out. Like many yews, there were two planes of thick roots. The top plane of roots will end up as jins, so those ended up above the soil line. I was able to hack the rootball back so that I could fit it in a flat.

The next pictures show the tree in spring 2012 after additional root work. I was able to completely flatten the base, remove all the old thick roots, and get rid of all the remaining clay. You can see what kind of fine root growth I got after one year, even after hacking back the top the prior year. I also left it and the others out all winter, except for when the lows got below 20. They didn't miss a beat.

I don't know that you need to slowly adjust yours to full sun. If they were mine, I would just leave them out in full sun in the beginning of the season.

Damn! Nice work! Amazing you got it into a flat after collection! I obv. wasn't nearly aggressive enough...hence why I've had to deal with never drying out soil this last summer. Plus...it's turface lava and just a little pumice. If I'm that aggressive in root pruning this spring, I may just be able to fit them in A. flats.

Thanks for the photo's, that helped a lot! And will do about just putting them in full sun.
Appreciate your sharing Mcpesq!

 

[mcpesq817]

Great material...I wonder what it looks like now?

Thanks. Not bad for free and 30 minutes of light digging

I don't have any more recent pics - last year was a bit hectic with my wife having twins in the middle of repotting season. I did start a bit of carving to start the deadwood, and cut off portions that won't be in the final design. I didn't want to do too much as I wanted the foliage to start getting stronger, and I need to take a better look at the base to figure out a front. I'll try and add an update this year.

 

[Dav4]

I love yews!

 

[mcpesq817]

Damn! Nice work! Amazing you got it into a flat after collection! I obv. wasn't nearly aggressive enough...hence why I've had to deal with never drying out soil this last summer. Plus...it's turface lava and just a little pumice. If I'm that aggressive in root pruning this spring, I may just be able to fit them in A. flats.

Thanks for the photo's, that helped a lot! And will do about just putting them in full sun.
Appreciate your sharing Mcpesq!

Here is the bigger one that I collected with the one I posted earlier this morning. I couldn't get it into a flat, so it went into a nursery container.

This one is a bit trickier, as it had two planes of roots, with the top plane being the stronger plane. I had to pot it up into the deeper nursery container to cover both planes. Over the course of 2012 and 2013, I have been slowly removing the soil at the top and uncovering the roots at the top plane, to hopefully force the tree to start putting more energy into growing roots at the bottom plane.

It's really hard to tell in the pictures, but the base/bottom plane is covered by the roots at the upper plane, but flares out probably another 4" in diameter from the upper plane. There is a lot of movement and character that hopefully should start coming out in the next few years

 

[fore]

It is very interesting how these yews' roots grow in planes. Hadn't seen this before.

But it looks like you've gotten the root mass pretty compartmentalized pretty well by now!

 

[mcpesq817]

I should have mentioned that in my last post second picture, the base of the tree is sitting inside the flat, so it's a good 5" down below. The roots you're seeing are from the higher of the two planes of roots - hence the need to slowly work the soil level down so that the tree abandoned the roots at that level and pushed more resources to growing the roots lower on the tree. In the meantime, it was planted in the nursery container to the right. This year, I think I'll see if I can get it into a flat, as it's pretty heavy to move around in that nursery container.

On getting the root mass compartmentalized, what I've noticed in the second repotting is that the tree will have abandoned most of the thicker, older roots, and put out lots of fine feeder roots closer in to the trunk. Not sure if that's typical of other collected trees. It could just be that those thicker roots are still sitting in clay pockets in the rootball, while the tree prefers free draining soil. In any event, it makes things a lot easier because you can hack off those old thick roots without any issues.

 

[fore]

Oh, I see. I had thought you had cut it off and that was the bottom plane lol I see what you mean, but what if I have these two levels too, but I like the present lower trunk and nebari, could I do just the opposite and slowly eliminate the bottom plane? On one, I'll def. want to elim. the top and develop the bottom root plane.

 

[fore]

Ok, now some shit news. I lost one, and nearly lost the second one. Next yr, a larger hoop house so I can have some room around heater and minimize hot spots.
Fort, the best is the one doing the best

 

[mcpesq817]

Oh man, so sorry to see that. How did you overwinter them? This was a really tough winter. I left my yews outside this winter, and a couple of them seem to be having a hard time keeping the weak branches. Still green though thankfully. In the past I kept them in my detached garage, but this year, I left them outside for most of the winter.

 

[Dav4]

Ok, now some shit news. I lost one, and nearly lost the second one. Next yr, a larger hoop house so I can have some room around heater and minimize hot spots.
Fort, the best is the one doing the best

Yikes! That's too bad. That second one is not out of the woods yet, either. I've had yews cruise along for a full year after collection before going south. If this one pushes new growth, that's an excellent sign...feed the heck out of it and give it plenty of sun, but I'd baby for at least another year before any pruning at all.

 

[Poink88]

Chris,

Sorry.

This is the problem I got when I "baby or protect" my newly collected trees. They grow but very weak. The ones I threw directly into full sun have much stronger new growth and usually get established faster. This is for broad leaf and not sure if same would have applied to yew.

 

[fore]

I know Dave, I'm most def. not out of the woods on the second one too. I've been a bit cautious about putting them in full sun so far. They are getting misted 2 min every 4hrs. So maybe they can tolerate more sun...

 

[fore]

Yikes! That's too bad. That second one is not out of the woods yet, either. I've had yews cruise along for a full year after collection before going south. If this one pushes new growth, that's an excellent sign...feed the heck out of it and give it plenty of sun, but I'd baby for at least another year before any pruning at all.

I hate to say Dave, yup, the 2nd ones dead too. And I may even loose the third. I'm pretty pissed, but can say I've learned a ton about how I want to handle future collections, like this juniper I have under the misters and shade. It's looking great! I know I've said it before, but boy, the first few yrs since I've taken this hobby more seriously, I've had some pretty bad losses. But I do at least 'feel' more confident for my future 'horticultural challenges' lol

 

[Dav4]

I hate to say Dave, yup, the 2nd ones dead too. And I may even loose the third. I'm pretty pissed, but can say I've learned a ton about how I want to handle future collections, like this juniper I have under the misters and shade. It's looking great! I know I've said it before, but boy, the first few yrs since I've taken this hobby more seriously, I've had some pretty bad losses. But I do at least 'feel' more confident for my future 'horticultural challenges' lol

That's too bad but I'm not surprised based on the most recent photo. Fwiw, I'm only 2 for 5 on successfully collecting old yew hedge material...it's not easy.

 

[coh]

Sorry to hear about the bad luck with these.

I dug up an old yew from our foundation a few years ago. It was scraggly and weak and to top it off, I got almost no fine feeder roots which surprised me based on where it was growing. But I potted it up anyway, placed in a location that got a small amount of morning sun. It was starting to push new buds when I dug it and once they started opening in a few weeks, I figured it was doing well enough to move into more sun. Big mistake. All the old needles quickly yellowed and dropped as did some of the new shoots. Thought it was over but I moved it back to the shade and coddled it for the rest of that year. It survived and gradually strengthened, so I increased the amount of sun it got each year.

Just repotted this spring (3 years after the dig) and found a very vigorous, healthy root system. So I managed to save it. Unfortunately the top is much less impressive than any of yours were, it's basically a straight trunk with overly large branches with the foliage at the ends. There are some new shoots off the trunk. I collected it mainly as a learning process (it had to go anyway) and it has served well so far. I may plant it back in the garden somewhere, haven't decided yet.

Anyway, the long-winded moral to the story...yews are tough, but don't rush them into the sun after collecting. I think that's a reasonable approach with most collected trees.

Chris

 

[fore]

Thanks Chris and Dave. So much work getting these collected, and I got so many roots. My 3 mistakes were I think:
1. prob cutting off too much growth at collection
2 not planting in pure pumice (so I was afraid I would overwater in this turface/lava/and small amt of sm. grained pumice)
3 not getting it out of the heavy soil 100%.

Live and learn...

 

[fore]

Well, all are gone. Very very sad. There were fine feeder roots in this last one. So perhaps the cold winter got them, or I didn't water adeq. to ensure water got under the huge trunks.

I'll prob. never get another chance like these...

 

[JudyB]

Sorry to hear that, I was hoping to see a positive post. But never say never, your best find may be around the corner.

 

[fore]

Ok, going to try again. This time, leave foliage, remove all field soil and place in pumice.