Unbelievable! '' Getting through a bitter winter''? Your first post was in March, end of winter, so when was cutted and planted back without roots? Could you please recap the whole process?
You are correct, I dug this fella in March. I was so dismayed when I found a 5” diameter tap root that went straight under the sidewalk, but I took it home anyways. There was one single tiny feeder root that I decided I needed to spare, hence the bizarre planting angle.
After I cleaned up the base, I wired it into a goofy homemade box, backfilled with pure pumice, sprinkled a bit of diluted rooting hormone solution, and covered the entire thing with a black garbage bag. I left it in a sunny spot for about 3 weeks, and buds began to form. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any buds to break in the old wood, so I will probably be doing some grafting. I plan to cut the trunk shorter this spring to work on developing a more tapered trunk. Here’s the log in March 2020, with the first emerging buds:
Aftercare consisted of sunlight and water! So my comment about making it through this winter: I have some concern that most of the foliar mass was grown via reserved energy within the log. Ihave not looked to see what, if any, root system has developed, and as a new bonsaiist, I don’t really know if I need to provide special protection going into it’s first winter as a living log. I can definitely vouch for the insane vigor and resilience of this (elm?), so I am somewhat confident it will continue to thrive if it survives winter #1. More pics to follow...
