Collecting in the mid-Atlantic

[MrFancyPlants]

I've been dreaming of going on a collecting trip for years now, but have never been able to follow through and get permission to collect in a worth while area. I feel that my horticultural skills are at the right level to start moving into some more serious material.

Does anyone have any tips for me on where to go to ask for permission. Would I have better luck with State or National parks?

Pinus Virginiana and Eastern Hemlock would be my ideal candidates, but I am willing to branch out (pun intended).

Thanks,
David

 

[rockm]

East Coast collection permits are extremely difficult to get, if you can get them at all. State and National parks in the Mid Atlantic don't give out permits like the BLM lands out west. You can try to convince individual local ranger districts of your plight and try for forest use permits (some allow firewood and other types of private collection, depending on the park...) Good luck with that though.

The best bet is to hook up with the local bonsai club in your area for collection trips on private land. Most clubs have such trips every spring.

If you know someone with older landscaping plants, that's also a deep, excellent source for material.

 

[tanlu]

I feel your pain. Where are you located? I know there are places in Southern NJ (e.g., Avalon) where JBP are considered an invasive species. I was given permission there to remove a few plants, but now that I don't have a car I can't make the trip!

T

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I am just outside DC, but I make surf trips to New Jersey occasionally. I've noticed driving through the pine barrens that in certain areas the needles are very short and there is a profusion of backbudding all along the trunks of the pines. I believe they are Pinus virginiana, but I wouldn't complain to get a nice JBP either.

 

[rockm]

The pines in the barrens are pitch pine (pinus rigida) which makes excellent bonsai. You may run into a wall of issues trying to get a permit to collect trees there however. The Pinelands National Reserve that protects the barrens, contains over 1 million acres, occupying 22% of New Jersey's land area. The reserve contains Wharton State Forest, Brendan T. Byrne State Forest and Bass River State Forest. The whole place was designated a U.S. Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and an International Biosphere Reserve in 1988. A lot of the land is privately owned too.

If you have no experience in collecting, much less collecting pines, you might want to think about going on club trip with experienced collectors. Collecting from the wild is NOTHING like the books say.

FWIW, if you're near D.C., you have a pretty deep well of older landscaping plants to work with, from boxwood, to azalea to many many other things. Some of the landscaping plants around these parts have been in place for a VERY long time. There are spectacular azaleas and dwarfed boxwood around almost every corner that may have been planted at the turn of the century or longer. All you have to do is look at your neighborhood, or you favorite older neighborhood for prospects. I've collected a good number of my trees from local sources.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I do always keep an eye out for potential landscaping plants, but I haven't had much luck. I always see the yew off to the corner of the construction site. It looks like they are working around it, and then the next day it is gone. I have imagined that it would be fun to work for a landscaping business part time so that I could claim older material marked for replacement. Maybe I'll give craigslist a quick scan.

 

[rockm]

"I do always keep an eye out for potential landscaping plants, but I haven't had much luck. I always see the yew off to the corner of the construction site. It looks like they are working around it, and then the next day it is gone"

Luck favors the prepared. Opportunities to get good landscape plants are fleeting. Usually, if you don't go up and ask someone immediately, you will never get permission to get it. Waiting isn't an option, really.

I've lost a few good opportunities to get some really nice trees because I assumed it wasn't going anywhere. In these parts with rapid development, that's a bad assumption. If you see it, take action.

Also look beyond your neighborhood. There are loads of communities around here that came up in the early 50's and 60's that have older landscape plantings that need refreshing. Offering to plant new shrubs in place of older ones can be another way to get good material.

 

[linlaoboo]

I'm in central Jersey, would love to go down there and get a few JBPs!

I feel your pain. Where are you located? I know there are places in Southern NJ (e.g., Avalon) where JBP are considered an invasive species. I was given permission there to remove a few plants, but now that I don't have a car I can't make the trip!

T

 

[Paradox]

Being on Long Island, there are no good places to collect here as there seem to be no areas where trees are naturally stunted even if you could get permission to collect. I did manage to get half a dozen pitch pine seedlings that sprouted along a dirt road a little over a year ago. 5 are still alive and are now a foot or more tall but they are still a long way from being bonsai.

 

[jk_lewis]

NO national park or national monument anywhere will allow collection. Very, very few State parks will allow it, either. (See caveat below.)

However, National Forests do give out collecting permits (for a fee) as do many State forests -- except for areas of those forests designated as "wilderness". Check the U.S. Forest Service website or visit one of the local offices of whatever National Forest is closest to you. Ditto state forests.

Finding decent places to collect, however, is a different question. You find very few truly collectible trees IN the deep forest or in open fields. Collectible areas are often quite dangerous -- cliffs, bald mountaintops, and stream/river edges, where for one reason or another trees struggle to survive. There are very few of these in the eastern USA that aren't in national or state parks or wilderness areas.

Many of the best collecting sites in the east will be in and on private lands, but these again can be dangerous -- Quarries, mine tailings, and reclamation areas, barren, logged-out lands, etc. Getting corporate permission is often difficult to impossible; corporate lawyers always are concerned about liability and damages.

The best collecting in the east is, I'm afraid, in urban and urbanizing areas, urban renewal sites, local park renovations, etc.

The west is different, but there are all sorts of environmental issues out west that we don't have in the east (not that many western states seem to give a damn).

Caveat regarding collecting in parks: Occasionally (rarely) a park will have a day for clearing invasive species out of native environments. A few of the invasives they'll go after (Chinese privet, for example, or Brazilian pepper in Florida) might make decent bonsai.

 

[rockm]

"Caveat regarding collecting in parks: Occasionally (rarely) a park will have a day for clearing invasive species out of native environments. A few of the invasives they'll go after (Chinese privet, for example, or Brazilian pepper in Florida) might make decent bonsai."

This is an area that bears more research. I've seen newspaper reports of COUNTY parks here allowing people in to collect invasive like Honeysuckle, wisteria and bittersweet vines. If you know those, then you know they can reach expansive proportions that can work for bonsai. Bittersweet vines are rampant here, as are wisteria. Both are invasives that parks look to get rid of. Japanese honeysuckle rarely achieves enough trunk growth to bother with it, but sometimes you run across a very large one...

 

[Stan Kengai]

I do always keep an eye out for potential landscaping plants, but I haven't had much luck. I always see the yew off to the corner of the construction site. It looks like they are working around it, and then the next day it is gone. I have imagined that it would be fun to work for a landscaping business part time so that I could claim older material marked for replacement. Maybe I'll give craigslist a quick scan.

Try befriending a few landscape architects. Just call them up and tell them you'd like an opportunity to recycle some of the plants they plan on taking out on their projects. Most are more than happy to be your advocate with the homeowners because then they can say they are being "environmentally friendly" by recycling . Some of them can even tell you if the material is good for bonsai or not.