Prunus spinosa "Katharine"

 

Prunus spinosa "Katharine"

Prunus spinosa in new pot by Luboš Škoda. In my opinion, the tree is getting good enough to receive the name. Since now its name is "Katharine". Flowers could open in the next few days, even if we are experiencing really cold weather. 

A couple of new projects

As I wrote in one of my previous posts I caught collecting bug last spring and had an irresistible feeling I haven't collected enough trees in the last few years. I thought I have enough space for a few new projects, which obviously proved terribly wrong. Nevertheless, I managed to bring a few new trees last year. 

In desperate attempt to make my shelves look decent this spring, I was repotting everything that was possible to be repotted into ceramic pots from plastic bowls. So did I with two trees on pictures below. Both were collected in March 2018. Both were very vigorous so I repotted them. Not that I'm recommending it as a standard approach with freshly collected trees. It is still better to wait 2-3 seasons and than disturb trees again. In this case, trees were Prunus mahleb and second is Elm, which is both vigorous growers. I had almost no doubt they will do just fine. 

For mahleb, I see its future with a round, rather wide crown, with upward branches. Trunks need to be carved for sure. I hope the tree will create nice even nebari all around the trunk. 

March 2019 after repotting

March 2019 after repotting

April 2019

April 2019

Summer 2018, a few months after collecting from wild

The second project is Elm. Also with strong roots, already nice even distribution. Even if it was not true they tend to improve nebari themselves by growing a lot of roos on all sides. I decided this will be traditional (!!!) broom project. I know, I know what you are thinking. That I'm not doing a lot of traditional shit and so on. But As I was looking at the trunk I saw it there, I promise. I'm following one interesting thread on BonsaiNut about crating broom and I think I can try to do it along these lines. It will be extremely challenging, and it will take two decades to bear fruit but I'm going to give it a try. Now, tree pushed a lot of growth from the cut in late spring, I cut off absolutely nothing. It pushed two branches from below the cut but I should have removed them but was not sure where I'm going with it. And those two branches were there much earlier than growth on cut. So, now everything is cleared, all excess growth was cut out and only 5-6 upward shots were left. They were shortened on two-three buds in March during repotting. Month later growth is strong again many new shoots emerged. I will leave it like it is to let the tree gain more strength after the repotting stress and thin out branches in about month time.  

Fraxinus ornus "Jan"

Couple of days ago tree still had its foliage, then came night frosts and all leaves were gone. It was time for few decent pictures. So, here you can see it with remaining autumn foliage and then without as all leaves were removed. Right time to evaluate structure improvement since last season. Couple of necessary edits were performed in the crown already. 

Fraxinus No.2 "Jan" with autumn foliage

Fraxinus No.2 "Jan"

Couple of days ago new pot appeared in my garden. Looking at it I had an idea I could have tree for it. So I took this ash tree from the shelf and looked how it will look like. Tree was taken out from previous chinese pot and roots were examined. Some minor editing to the root ball were necessary and tree fitted quite well. I used fresh moss to protect roots and keep them moist. Few days later it was good light to take decent pictures. You can see the result for yourself. There is plenty of posts about this tree here on my blog, but short summary - tree was collected from wild in Spring 2010, so naw in its 7th season in my garden. 

As you may know I try to name some of my better trees. I have a feeling this tree deserves name already. So,  I'm using this event of moving tree to new pot to baptize it to "Jan", after one special person in my personal life. 

New pot from Tomas Snovicky

Usual substrate preparation, mix of Zeoilite, Terramol and rough peat, Osmocote fertiliser into mix. Ready to go. 

Rough peat, in our part of the world referred also as lithuanian peat. Soaked in bucket and only floating parts used for substrate. 

In one of the spring post about ash I was reporting about shortening of the two thick roots. Both done well and new roots appeared from around the cut. 

Current front

Back side, not bad either

2010 - 2017 in one picture. 

There will be autumn foliage soon but, tree is still green as one of the last in my garden. I wait for yellow foliage, and then I'm curious how the tree developed structure this season. Pictures will follow obviously.