Collecting out of season

I have been given permission to collect a number of old landscape trees from where I work in the face of impending demolition. The problem is that I can't collect them until just before the demo with will be in the summertime.

What steps should I take now to raise my chances of success?

The list of trees is as follows:

Several podocarpus
Crape Myrtle
Azalea
Pittosporum
A large juniper type tree (hard to ID)
Ilex Schillings

Here is the juniper type tree. Can anyone here ID it?




Thanks

The Podocarpus will be the most difficult at that time of year. At the best of times, they don't like their roots messed with (though I can recall an article in Bonsai Today by Mary Miller (I think) about some large ones dug at Miami Tropical Bonsai, and they dug mostly stump and appatrently it did OK. Don't know the time of year that was.

The only large one (base 13 inches) I've dug successfully was dug at Christmas. I took a couple from a situation much like you described (8 inch bases) and neither survived.

IMO, Pittosporum make miserable bonsai. (Actually, the make miserable plants! -- but that's probably just me.)

Crape myrtle and azalea should give you no problem, assuming they're not out of the ground too long. I'd plant them right back into the ground, so pre-dig the hole.

Dunno about the Ilex and Juniper in your part of Florida.

JimLewis wrote:
IMO, Pittosporum make miserable bonsai. (Actually, the make miserable plants! -- but that's probably just me.)

My experience, with NZ Pittosporum in NZ, is much the same - they do little, even the varieties in garden centres with 'lush foliage'. I have a 'wild' one, self seeded from one my father collected in the wild 40 years ago (or more?), that I have been growing in a container for the last 6 or 7 years. It still looks like a scrappy little seedling just collected.

The only one I can talk about is the Juniper. Ive dug them up in the height of summerand had no problems. As large a root ball as you cann manage, pot up and place in semi shade and it should be fine.

Alas, Will, the heat of a Central Florida summer is quite different than the heat of your UK summers -- even in the worst summer you can imagine. (Tho, your advice is still valid -- only more so.)

There's a reason (or two) that I moved up to the North Carolina foothills.

JimLewis wrote:Alas, Will, the heat of a Central Florida summer is quite different than the heat of your UK summers

Isn't that the truth. I'm going to prep the juniper now and hope that this will lessen the blow in the summer. It should. I won't waste my time with the Pittosporum.

Thanks for the input. I'll keep you posted.

Ed

I have little experience collecting, so I will pose this to Jim et al. with more such experience. Would it be of any advantage to use a spade now to partially cut the roots in a circumferential manner which approximates where you would eventually harvest the tree? Not severe enough to harm the tree now, as it must remain intact until demolition time.The thought would be that the tree would respond with some new root growth,close in, that might be of use when harvested later.

Would it be of any advantage to use a spade now to partially cut the roots in a circumferential manner which approximates where you would eventually harvest the tree?

Always a good idea if you have the time and know someone else won't take advantage of your effort.

I suspect this is what Ed's planning on doing.