Repotted my literati-ish boxwood

[Joe Dupre']

I got this boxwood from the roadside a little over a year ago after a tip from one of my friends. It had a decent root ball, several high branches with sparse foliage. I put it in a big tub and fed it heavily. I kept thinking about a design for it, but it was just too sparse down low for anything but a 20 year wait. I spent a few days doing the old towel trick......... covering up branches with a towel to let my eye concentrate on just what was exposed. This is what I came up with. I only had to cut 15-20% of the roots to get it into my homemade concrete

Notice the green grass, green leaves on the little elm to the right and a pretty healty bougainvillea to the left. Gotta love South Louisiana in mid January!

 

[Crawforde]

Nice pot and a cool tree.

 

[j evans]

I like it! Something different.

 

[penumbra]

I love the gnarly trunk, top needs styling.

 

[Joe Dupre']

I love the gnarly trunk, top needs styling.

The top definitely needs styling. It's a 3-5 year plan instead of the 20 year plan it originally would have been. It's only a year from unceremoniously being yanked out of the previous owner's front yard with a chain pulled by an 18 wheeler. True story. Still has chain scars on it. You can't buy that kind of story.

While not up to show standards, it still will have an honored place in my garden where I'll admire it every time I walk through.

 

[Tulsabonsigh]

I got this boxwood from the roadside a little over a year ago after a tip from one of my friends. It had a decent root ball, several high branches with sparse foliage. I put it in a big tub and fed it heavily. I kept thinking about a design for it, but it was just too sparse down low for anything but a 20 year wait. I spent a few days doing the old towel trick......... covering up branches with a towel to let my eye concentrate on just what was exposed. This is what I came up with. I only had to cut 15-20% of the roots to get it into my homemade concrete

Notice the green grass, green leaves on the little elm to the right and a pretty healty bougainvillea to the left. Gotta love South Louisiana in mid January!

View attachment 278574

i need more info on how you made your own pot out of concrete! This is genius level stuff!

 

[Joe Dupre']

Basic instructions: Plastic bowl of suitable size, oiled and turned upside down on plastic sheeting. Cover bowl with towel soaked in slurry of 2 parts sand and 1 part portland cement. Add 3/4" ( plus or minus) layer of thickened concrete mix on top of that. I worked the upper band with a thin strip of plastic from milk carton and the texture of the rest with a stiff brush. Feet are just dollops of concrete shaped while wet. Don't forget to make a few holes before the concrete dries. Let dry for a couple of days and remove the bowl. Soak finished pot in water for a week or two before using.

 

[penumbra]

Impressive and simple.

 

[Joe Dupre']

Impressive and simple.

Thanks, penumbra. That is exactly what I was going for........in the tree and in the pot.

 

[Joe Dupre']

Sad news. This one also bit the dust. The two large branches on the right started dying and were gone in a matter of days. I guess I could have tried to continue with the one remaining branch, but I was not going to watch this thing slowly die. I yanked it out of the pot, put the infected parts in the burn pile and hung up the trunk on the "wall of shame" on my workshop. NO MORE boxwoods for me. I've had, and seen, too many of my and my friends' boxwoods die a lingering death. My gut feeling is that this particular variety of boxwood gets stressed easily in a pot environment. I'm done.

 

[Colorado]

Sorry to hear.