Need help with some oaks

[SU2]

They have been collected and potted. In FL they are about as dormant as they will ever get IMHO... Myself, I would leave them be as is in partial sun, water as needed and wait. Defoliation would be of no consequence or help. If the one drops and buds so be it. The point is you just want them to live and doing anything other then normal care now would be time better spent on other plants. As with many trees the waiting game begins

Grimmy

Thank you! When you say partial-sun, it's original location was against a south-facing fence, so it'd get unobstructed sun til around noon, and then no direct light afterward - that's how I was planning to set it up here, are you saying I should make it more partial than that? I think you are saying that but just want to be sure, have already got it setup in a position that should be almost identical (in orientation to the sun, and in the solid wall behind it) to its orientation when collected, want to be sure I'm getting you before changing anything! Luckily I could move it on the same wall and make it so it got less hours of sun than it had before, if you're saying that it should get less sun do you think it'd be better to move it so it gets the sun from the same direction as always but just less of it (because the sunlight is blocked earlier in the day), or to move it somewhere that it gets no direct light, but diffuse light all day?

Thanks for the reply btw, appreciated as always! Can only imagine how silly&immature my collection would be w/o people like you to help me lol, I mean my collection is garbage by the standards here but I'm happy with how it's coming along and owe that difference to you guys!!

 

[GrimLore]

I was planning to set it up here, are you saying I should make it more partial than that?

I would do as you planned and again just sit back and play the waiting game. Up North for example collection, done proper or improper is 50/50 on a good day - Down South the odds are better with proper care or what seems to be little care

Grimmy

 

[rockm]

Holy crap I didn't notice you had your own site!?! Will be devouring that tomorrow on my day off

Yes they were fairly broad as, based on your former reply, I knew I wanted to know far more from you than you'd care to type, so I cast a wide net for you to decide what to tell me And thank you, that is an AWESOME post here- the "Essentially all collecting done jan1-mar31" bit is of more value to me than you could ever know, I've been told 'optimal' times for various species that contradict each other all over the place but there were trends and the 'jan-mar' seems to be the sweet-spot for lots of stuff, hearing it phrased that way helped (I was still unsure if it's *always* time for something, and while that may be true if you searched for anomalous species, it's good to know that the 'general, regular time' for our zone is now-->march, that's HUGE for me because just a few weeks ago I still thought winter was a 'do not collect' time (as I'd had so much luck w/ bougies&crapes in the warmth, it seemed collection was something to be done during active growth, not preceding it! Thank you very very much, I was psyched to enter my first full growing-season w/ a bonsai collection, happy with what I've already got, but knowing that the proper time basically *just* started, well, I could easily end up doubling my collection before spring!)

Why don't you lift larger pines/junipers? I don't have anything coniferous yet :/

Am going to have to bone-up on my taxonomy, I thought almost all evergreens were deciduous (and am utterly ignorant about how 'broadleaf' comes into consideration!)

Re Sweetgums, I'm embarrassed to say I'd never heard of them til now....upon googling and seeing how seemingly-ubiquitous they are, I'm thinking that I've been thinking sweetgums were maples (there's several mature ones near me, always thought maple but will find out for sure tomorrow, think they're sweetgums - how do you like them, are they on your higher/lower priority when considering them in relation to others?

Oaks have always been hard/impossible for me; crapes/bougies have been almost guaranteed success....of the species you listed, it would be incredibly appreciated if you could tell me which are closer to bougies/crapes in terms of likelihood-to-survive dramatic collections (I tend towards large stock w/ heavy trunk-chopping), would be so damn grateful

Got the two oaks from today potted, can't believe now's the time am so excited to get a bunch more trees now



I'm wondering whether it'd be smart/dumb to defoliate if collecting while dormant, since dormancy here still has growth....I defoliated ~6-8 leaves from the shoot on one of my oaks from today, starting from the bottom of course (so the auxin-producing tips stayed intact), came out like this:

View attachment 174009

And the other didn't have foliage, well actually it did but it was like 4' in the air, someone had 'trunk chopped' it to ~4' tall, it grew ~10 shoots from near its tip at 4' up, so I simply cut it to ~1' (leaving just a stump) and collected that way, am unsure how proper that was for this guy:

View attachment 174010

I would be extremely careful about taking collecting advice on your live oaks in Fla. from someone digging CALIFORNIA live oaks. They are not the same. Southern Live oak (quercus virginiana) is NOT like Cali. live oaks. Southern live oak is used to a lot of moisture. Cali oaks are not. That means they behave differently when stressed. What works for one, may not work for the other.

I would not defoliate the oak. It will defoliate itself if need be. You need to take a breath and stop trying to "do" stuff to the trees. collected trees basically just need to be left alone post collection.

Zach Smith's website is pretty valuable beyond the trees for sale, just for how he treats collected stuff. He has a lot of experience.

 

[SU2]

I would do as you planned and again just sit back and play the waiting game. Up North for example collection, done proper or improper is 50/50 on a good day - Down South the odds are better with proper care or what seems to be little care

Grimmy

Good stuff, thanks!! Am now starting to collect more since it seems it's the proper time (or close-to) for lots of specie, just collected a ~6" thick ruby loropetalum yesterday, my 2nd attempt at one of these, last time was in the summer though - will see how this one goes! I suck at the waiting game and bougies in summer let me evade it a bit but there's no getting around it w/ stuff collected while dormant! Will be an interesting spring, seeing what % actually survive!! Have collected 4 new specimen in the past week (and have a couple that're still in-ground getting watered daily, having been trenched a week ago, that I'm going to lift in a few more weeks )

I would be extremely careful about taking collecting advice on your live oaks in Fla. from someone digging CALIFORNIA live oaks. They are not the same. Southern Live oak (quercus virginiana) is NOT like Cali. live oaks. Southern live oak is used to a lot of moisture. Cali oaks are not. That means they behave differently when stressed. What works for one, may not work for the other.

I would not defoliate the oak. It will defoliate itself if need be. You need to take a breath and stop trying to "do" stuff to the trees. collected trees basically just need to be left alone post collection.

Zach Smith's website is pretty valuable beyond the trees for sale, just for how he treats collected stuff. He has a lot of experience.

Thanks!! In hindsight I really wish I got more varied trees off the bat, working with bougies too much gave me unrealistic ideas about stuff (for instance they want full sun immediately after aggressive work, or that defoliation is part&parcel for their care both after collection or once established)

Zach's site is awesome, I only saw it for the first time this week but have been trying to get down as much as I can!! And I'm happy to do nothing with them, I just wanted to do things if they were of value, I've got more benches & containers to make if there's nothing to be done on any trees so it's certainly not an issue of wanting to play bonsai, only one of wanting to shore-up the % chance-of-survival of all I'm collecting right now! Aside from having defoliated <10 leaves on the laurel oak, the only thing I've done is feed them all w/ diluted 3-4-4 Biotone/Gardentone (wouldn't have done this if they were in soil but w/ them being put into inert, sterile media, it just makes sense as biotone inoculates w/ bacteria/fungi as well as that light fertilization, I used it around half-strength so 1.5-2-2 for macronutrients )

In collecting bougies-with-foliage, I'd remove foliage until the wilting stopped/started reversing, do you suspect that if I'd simply left them alone that they'd have wilted, dropped all their current shoots, and grown new ones instead? Honestly am not even sure whether summer was the 'right' time for bougies, or if they're just so un-killable that it worked anyways...

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I would be extremely careful about taking collecting advice on your live oaks in Fla. from someone digging CALIFORNIA live oaks. They are not the same. Southern Live oak (quercus virginiana) is NOT like Cali. live oaks. Southern live oak is used to a lot of moisture. Cali oaks are not.

California live oaks should be treated like Mediterranean trees (olives, cork oaks, etc). They do well in hot and dry environments and gravelly soil, and will often push two flushes of growth each year (Spring and Fall) with a summer dormancy. I have no experience with Florida live oaks but as @rockm stated, I am sure that at the minimum, the soil and watering requirements would be different.