Great New Peter Tea Blog Post

[fourteener]

This is the kind of tree worthy of a 10-15 year investment of time. Some of the things I'm working on won't even be acceptable accent plants for this in that time!!

 

[Vance Wood]

junipers do get most of their strength from the foliage but its just common sense that if you remove half or more of any trees roots but remove none of the foliage that the remaining roots won't support all that foliage. You could leave more foliage then on some other types of trees but there has to be somewhat of a balance. Where does the foliage get its strength from?

I believe there is something else at work here that goes beyond the balancing act though that seems to be the point. The big enemy with trees is the same with human beings; shock. If you can find a way to kick the tree out of shock you can save the tree. It is my belief that after pruning the roots the tree will go into shock and remain there till it feels like doing something, usually we consider this time to be about two weeks. In my way of thinking it goes like this.

If you root prune the tree you put the tree in shock. Shock to the root system is not a normal encounter for a tree, this is in essence a life threatening event. Sometimes a tree will go into shock and never come out of it just like people.

My understanding and theory is: If you have a diminished root system attempting to support a foliage system that is beyond its capacity to do so the tree will be very slow to recovery--- if it recovers. However and this is my theory: Reducing the top actually does two things. One is to reduce the load on the roots. Second is to simulate the roots into a normal response to react to the damage to the foliage. So---- in doing this you are forcing the tree's roots to respond to something above ground instead of languishing in self pity in the dirt. It's in a sense doing something that forces the tree to function.

Some of you may be aware of a technique used in attaching severed limbs on people. The limb is reattached and leaches are placed at the extremities of the severed limb to pull blood into the portions of the limb that has been damaged. There is nothing magical about the action of the leaches it is only the circulation their feeding stimulates that makes them valuable in this process.

Now; I think I am going to go and hide, anticipating the firestorm of indignation and accusations of recommending leeches and bleeding in the face of modern understanding, blah blah blah and a refusal to recognize the logic of what I have found to be true for years.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

Fascinating, Vance. Before your post about medical use of leeches, I've been having images of ICU in my mind. Wondering, what changes in plant physiology go on during the trauma that occurs when such a juniper is collected. Human metabolism is different during stress and trauma aside from plants, but one could at least speak philosophicaly about ancient collected trees. Makes me curious if there are any types of scientific papers are out there related to this topic. I'm not too optimistic as with everything money is a factor.

 

[yenling83]

The tree obviously survived collection with almost no roots and no foliage reduction. I'd attribute much of the success to the misting house, and some to the larger sized pumice allowing for maximum oxygen in the root zone.

Peter's technique may be a safety in case he's not planning to mist the tree.

There were actually two people that collected this tree, however one of them played a much bigger role and was the one that established the tree with almost no roots after it was collected. I know the guy that collected and housed this massive tree, he has a very unique after care set up with a misting house he designed and custom built himself. Some things that he has done a great job at are balancing the amount of moisture in the air, frequently misting the foliage while keeping it off the pumice. He also kept all the foliage when it was initially collected.
The results that he gets are very impressive. From my experience, I never thought you could get this tree to survive, but he did it. Even though I've been able to collect many junipers(CA, Sierra and Utah), if this tree was in my care it would have very likely died. I would not recommend collecting trees like this if your just starting out.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

There were actually two people that collected this tree, however one of them played a much bigger role and was the one that established the tree with almost no roots after it was collected. I know the guy that collected and housed this massive tree, he has a very unique after care set up with a misting house he designed and custom built himself. Some things that he has done a great job at are balancing the amount of moisture in the air, frequently misting the foliage while keeping it off the pumice. He also kept all the foliage when it was initially collected.
The results that he gets are very impressive. From my experience, I never thought you could get this tree to survive, but he did it. Even though I've been able to collect many junipers(CA, Sierra and Utah), if this tree was in my care it would have very likely died. I would not recommend collecting trees like this if your just starting out.

yenling83,

Do you know if any roots were cut during the collection process? I think that the juniper had finer roots somewhere.

Also, the foliage was misted, but the pumice received some watering, right? Any idea what type of watering regimen was it?

 

[Poink88]

Do you know if any roots were cut during the collection process?

You are kidding right?

 

[thumblessprimate1]

No, I'm not kidding. If it's a dumb question, I apologize. It's obvious that one would try to preserve all the roots one can, but if roots are imposible to get to and a collector knows that he could make the yamadori live and grow roots, then cutting roots may be a practical route.

Also, I'm puzzled that it had no fine roots if none were cut at all. My understanding is that finer roots draw in water better than large roots, but could it be that they also lose moisture more readily? if so, then might this be an adaption that occurs with junipers in the desert?

 

[Poink88]

It is impossible for the tree pictured to only have the roots shown. If you see the massive main roots...they were fed by many smaller roots probably hundred feet long. There is no way you can collect one similar or even a fraction in size or age w/o cutting roots.

Based on the pic...I would guess, the collector was lucky if he got a percent of the roots. He/they are extremely knowledgeable about the tree specie and aftercare to pull this off.

 

[yenling83]

yenling83,

Do you know if any roots were cut during the collection process? I think that the juniper had finer roots somewhere.

Also, the foliage was misted, but the pumice received some watering, right? Any idea what type of watering regimen was it?

Yes, anytime you collect a juniper you are cutting at least some roots. CA and Utah are usually different because these trees are not growing in a granite pocket like Sierra does. With these pocket trees(Sierra/Rocky Mountain) you are usually looking for a pocket of fine roots near/below the trunk. You must cut the anchor roots which dive down in the granite cracks to keep the tree stabilized, get something under the root ball and in a perfect world are left with the tree and a mat of fine roots.


The tree on Peter's blog was collected from more of a desert type environment where there are none of these pocket type environments to create fine mats of roots. You can still often find enough roots to keep it alive under or near the tree. In the case of this tree, the roots could have extended 15-60 ft past the trunk. The trouble with CA and Utah is that the fine roots are not all located in one nice compacted mat, they are connected to thicker roots that are going in many different ways. This is also why in my opinion it’s easier to get a higher survival rate with pocket trees compared with trees growing in sand/soil with lots of room to expand the root system. It’s a good idea to try and get as many roots as possible, however this is more easily said than done especially with something this massive. Foliage was misted and pumice was watered only when needed. He told me watering of the pumice was not very frequent, but I’m not sure exactly how often. I imagine the box did not dry out very quickly being so large.

 

[fore]

Interesting history yenling, thank you. I many recently collected trees from Randy's place. It's very impressive his collection technique, and more important after care, given the very small root masses I've seen.

And I to very much enjoy peters blog. He has a very clear, concise, easy-to-read writing plus, he seems like a very nice guy.