Urban Yamadori finds

CWTurner

Omono
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Location
Philadelphia PA
USDA Zone
7a
Last week I visited a couple of local cemeteries and found these on their dump piles. All had been previously excavated and though they held some soil and roots, other roots were exposed to the air and dry. The first 3 are typical yew, 4 is an azalea, 5 a boxwood. Except for the boxwood all these were mature landscape bushes, 3'-4' tall wide. The boxwood had been clipped when I found it.

After getting permission, I clipped off the branches and dry roots, brought them home and buried them in soil/sand mixture. Since taking the pix, I've sealed the branch ends, and that's about it. I'm hoping that with some luck, these will grow again in the Spring.

Does anyone have experience collecting material that has been left out and the roots dried? Will scratching the roots and finding wetness indicate that the roots aren't dead yet, or does any drying doom them?

BTW, I intend to "make friends" with these groundskeepers and ask for a heads up when they're digging this sort of material in the future.
 

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Good stuff. Yew #2 may be the best. I think yew #3 and the azalea may have the best chance of survival based on my experience.

I know that there are regions in the US where people can get boxwood to backbud without foliage tips but in the Midwest I have yet to see that happen.

Yews will backbud if you hedge them while they are in the ground. Hedging them and digging them at the same time is obviously much harder on them. I came into a similar situation this summer with a few yews on the side of the road from someone doing a home expansion. I could only take two stumps with me but it looks like one will be just fine and the other will be dead by spring.

The cambium on yew roots is red. If you saw red on the roots they were still alive.

I would put up some burlap around these trees to protect them from winter winds. Hopefully you will find that they grow for you in spring.
 
I feel that more than any other variable with these trees living the most troublesome aspect is the time of year these were ripped out of the ground. Maybe one of them might live .... good luck.


ed
 
:confused: is this one planted to deep? The only reason I ask...is that I had mentioned to my husband that our rhodie (landscape shrub) had some soil washed away from it's roots from critters knocking over the rocks we had around to build up the hillside it was near. So he threw more soil on it covering the base as well as the bottom of some branches that came up from the base...it caused the shrub to die. Smothering it out. We had that shrub for a few years...and it saddened me to lose it. This is the only reason I am tossing this out.

It seems that you have dirt up on the lower branching of the tree. Which, had caused our own shrub to die. If it's to have a chance...might want to uncover the lower branches freeing it from the soil. Might give it a better fighting chance.

Not sure of Yews...might someone else offer up some advice on this matter.
 

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:confused: is this one planted to deep? The only reason I ask...is that I had mentioned to my husband that our rhodie (landscape shrub) had some soil washed away from it's roots from critters knocking over the rocks we had around to build up the hillside it was near. So he threw more soil on it covering the base as well as the bottom of some branches that came up from the base...it caused the shrub to die. Smothering it out. We had that shrub for a few years...and it saddened me to lose it. This is the only reason I am tossing this out.

It seems that you have dirt up on the lower branching of the tree. Which, had caused our own shrub to die. If it's to have a chance...might want to uncover the lower branches freeing it from the soil. Might give it a better fighting chance.

Not sure of Yews...might someone else offer up some advice on this matter.

That particular yew had a very odd root structure. Lots of fine surface roots growing out of 1-2 of the lower branches. The main flare of the trunk was another 7-8" below these fine roots and had no roots attached to it at all. It was disappointing to find this, but I cut off that portion of the base when I collected the bush.

I think that this got buried for some years and it grew some new roots higher up the individual trunks. So yes, it does look to be planted too deep as I wanted to cover the only available roots I have to work with.
 
Good idea on making friends with the groundskeeper....But if it were me and I was invited to help dig some others up I would still feel funny carrying a shovel into a graveyard....Just saying.

Hope they pull thru for you....I'm known for digging things up at the wrong time of year, but had pretty good luck at getting them to survive.

Brian
 
Irony

Giving new life to something taken from a cemetery. There has to be a special kind of good Karma for that. Hope they live.
 
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