Welp... all the trees minus the large one are dead. They survived the freeze we had in December, but I guess I was careless with them when we had the 2-day ice storm in the first week of February. They were pushing buds (small bbs were starting to swell right before that, and it didn't ring the bell. I lost a total of 5 trees, the 3 BC's and 2 Chojubais because of that storm. Last year we had a full week of snow at the same time and the trees did great. I started working on the first one today and felt that the roots were a little softer than normal, but they still looked alive, minus a few dark spots that I thought were from the little organic fertilizer and fish fert I used last year. But when I did the chop to transition to the new leader the tree felt dry and the sawdust was fine and dry as well... below are pictures from the trees and the work I did to the first one. I still worked the roots as a "practice run" since I knew it was dead. I checked the trunk of the other 2, and only one has about 3" of living tissue, but it was already recessing from the branch down.
This one really sucks as they were on such a great path. I already had picked out a pot for it and was about to pull the akadama out... lesson learned, thankfully I have around 15 new seedlings growing right now on root makers, going to have to come up with a way to transport them all the way around the house next year if we get another freak storm coming.
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