Collected oak

Just to show this new oak, Querqus robur, collected this spring.



Doing nice! I counted 50+ buds and twigs. I shortened some of the longest twigs (just a few of them) in the top part, to encourage those growing lower. Perhaps it worked.

This is pretty much the front. I will probably turn it so that the apex will be above the base.

From the side (a few weeks ago, so less growth):



Stub on right must go. There is actually two plants, I try to see if I can get that stub to fuse with the trunk, to get a wider base. If I take it away, there will be huge hollow part. Don't know what it would look like.

Please comment!

When found:

JWT wrote:Stub on right must go. There is actually two plants, I try to see if I can get that stub to fuse with the trunk, to get a wider base. If I take it away, there will be huge hollow part. Don't know what it would look like.

judging by the in situ picture, i would just cut the stump back the the main trunk and let it start healing over sooner than later...

i have always been curious about oaks in bonsai...
mainly in regards to how well the leafs reduce.

good luck

Let it grow, bro......trees need leaves. Me, I would grow it out a few years, and at a time of my leisure some five to six years from today, I would repot in late spring, whack off all the branches and then train those resultant shoots.

One more thing. Is southern Finland much warmer than northen Finland?

VERY nice find.

Woudl love to hear what you did durign collection. I killed a big one a few years ago, and ahve my eyes on a smallr stump, but for fear of killing it..

Hi JWT

Interesting find, good luck with it.
trunks dont fuse, and also the branch in the side of the trunk dont fuse, if you want it alive, do you need to have a branch on it.

Kind regards Yvonne

Thank you all for commenting!

beer city snake, I doubt it will never heal over. Hole would be about 3 inches wide. Maybe that is ok, there is a hole like that already. But if it is not fused, as Yvonne says, I probably can not save it. I hope it has fused. Either way, that is not a biggie.

In my experience, oak leaves reduce to 2-3 inches. They are small enough, and very beautiful.

LanceMac10, this will be a bush by the end of summer. It was collected this spring, and it is a little late because of that. It has to make new branches. There is no need to wait, because trunk is there already. All I need now is nebari and branches. Warmth - I live in USDA zone 6, northern Finland is zone 3.

Leatherback, glad u asked!


Pictures are from a friends blog.

Not my tree, mine was next. I'm in the middle . There were 8 of us, and we collected 4 very good oaks. Took us a whole day.. But I can not even start to tell you, how much fun we had. You know if you have been there.

To show you the original root ball (again, not this tree, but root ball was about that size):



These oaks were growing in very good soil, and roots are great. Those rootballs were reduced somewhat when trees were put to boxes. From a stony location root balls were much smaller, but those are doing nice too.

I have previously collected oaks with much less roots, but those have turned out ok too. I am no expert, but only real problem I see, is that oaks like it rather dry. When in a box or too big pot, they tend to stay wet for too long, despite of the open inorganic growing media. Leaves show the symptoms of mineral deficiency, but real reason is too wet soil. Box in the first picture, for example, has about 50 liters of soil, and can suck tens of liters of water. Overpotting is the term.

Other that that, oaks have been very easy. There is a well known articke of oaks there. My experiences are not like that at all, and it makes me wonder, it there is some genetic variation with oaks up here.

Thank you Yvonne. I suppose I will remove that fused side branch.