Collected Boxwood

Hello Everyone,
I am new to this forum and really enjoying that there are people from all over the world here!!
I wanted to share with everyone a boxwood that I collected last year in October. This is one of two boxwoods I found advertised on craigslist that I got for free . Actually, I was very fortunate because I was not the first person the respond to the listing and due to the contractors schedule, she kinda disappeared a couple times during our communication. However, perseverance paid off. It is my understanding that they are estimated to be around 68-70yrs old.
I collected both of these boxwoods by myself. With clay, I would estimate that they were about 150-200 pounds each. It took me about 4hrs each to dig them out. The one that I am sharing is a tree trunk clump that was dug out on a day that it happened to start raining and sleeting for much of the time I was collecting. It was a joyous day! I learned that boxwoods do put out a thick taproot but it started to run horizontally around 1.5-2” deep. My sawzall had to work hard to make it through it. A couple of the stabilizing roots were about 2.5-3” thick. After collecting both over two days, my good friend graciously let me use his truck to get them back home. It was covered with burlap for shade. I quickly got it into a couple home depot mixing bins and potted them with a mixture of 50% pumice and 50% leaf mold. I kept the clay root ball intact. I fertilized it with KLN and seaweed fertilizer. Within about a week, I sprayed it with wiltstop and I sprayed it a second time in January.

Throughout the winter, I never completely uncovered the tree. I only did minor checkups to see if branches were dying. Come late march and time to repot (late march)!! Much to my surprise after totally removing the burlap, I found new growth!! I was very excited. I did not expect new growth until later in the growing season. I had called another good friend who helped me repot both trees. It took us about 8hrs to repot them both. I wanted to repot it to have a consistent soil mixture. It is in a 60% turface and 40% pine bark mix. It was exciting to repot because as you can see the rootball went down another 2-3 inches and exposed a very attractive root base. Now it will rest with no work for a least 3yrs.
All comments welcome…

Ted

As adverstised


In the process of collecting


Initial potting


During repotting


In its new home


Perspective on the trunk. My watch is 1" wide.

WELCOME!!!

That is HUGE!!! Great score and Congrats!

I am also a newbie but I doubt you need to wait 3 years to play with this. I am already "tinkering" with all my boxwood which I collected just a few months back. I am NOT telling you to do as I am doing but decide depending on how vigorous your tree is. I am guessing you can work on it by next year. The teaser worked...I am awaiting the other one which I assume is the one pictured as being collected.

BTW, unless you intend it to be this big, you can reduce this tree much further now (maybe down to about 3 feet?).

What do you type as a search on craigslist to find owners trying to get rid of landscape material?

Poink88 wrote:WELCOME!!!

That is HUGE!!! Great score and Congrats!

I am also a newbie but I doubt you need to wait 3 years to play with this. I am already "tinkering" with all my boxwood which I collected just a few months back. I am NOT telling you to do as I am doing but decide depending on how vigorous your tree is. I am guessing you can work on it by next year. The teaser worked...I am awaiting the other one which I assume is the one pictured as being collected.

BTW, unless you intend it to be this big, you can reduce this tree much further now (maybe down to about 3 feet?).

Hey Dario,
Thanks! I wouldn't quite call myself a newbie but I am young in the bonsai lifestyle . I am in no rush. I have about 40 other trees in development to help keep me busy. If all goes well, it should be much stronger next year which I still don't think is strong enough. I am also working to get rid of leaf miner.
Not sure that I will post the other one until I have a better sense of it and clean it up some. It's a bit more difficult to see.

Gideon wrote:What do you type as a search on craigslist to find owners trying to get rid of landscape material?

I just search "dig" and sometimes "haul". Most of the time the posting will say "your dig" or "you haul away". It's worked well. One of my friends got a very very nice yew the spring after some bad snow storms here.

Ted

Thank you very much and good luck with all your projects! I try not to collect too many because I feel I wont put in as much work/quality into the trees I already have because my time is being spread between too many trees.

No problem and thanks.
I know what you mean. I think I am about at my max for now. Having a fair number of trees does help though to keep my hands off of trees that should not be touched. I've also been volunteering at the national bonsai arboretum which has helped me learn a lot but also keeps me from getting new trees just to keep myself busy.

Ted

Gideon wrote:What do you type as a search on craigslist to find owners trying to get rid of landscape material?

I search for "bushes", "shrubs", "shrub", "hedge", "trees" and collected 30+ free plants the past 3 months through Craigslist. Just check the free section every now and then...that is where 90%+ of them are posted anyway. Good luck!

I too am running out of space and starting to be more discriminating on what I should collect.

Nice find! I especially love that many of the urban collected ones are "rescue" trees. If not for adventurous Bonsai folks, these old plants would probably be in a landfill!

I think I personally would have potted it in a smaller container, these concrete tubs are a real pain to move and lift. Have you ever tried a restaurant bussing tub? They're slightly smaller and have good hand holds.

JMcCoy wrote:Nice find! I especially love that many of the urban collected ones are "rescue" trees. If not for adventurous Bonsai folks, these old plants would probably be in a landfill!

I think I personally would have potted it in a smaller container, these concrete tubs are a real pain to move and lift. Have you ever tried a restaurant bussing tub? They're slightly smaller and have good hand holds.

Thanks a lot. What made the experience even nicer was the fact that she was a green contractor. She took the other bushes you see in the photo and moved them elsewhere on the property. She said the boxwoods just would not fit with the new landscaping and she did not want to just throw them away. I hope she will contact me again if she comes across more trees.
The mixing tray is a bit unwieldy. I've never heard of a bussing tub. Could you post a picture of one?

Ted

Great that she was of the same mind! I'd love to meet a green landscaper here who would like to save than throw away existing plants. It seems everyone is too eager to ditch the old plants for some new bed of flowers!

This is what the bus tubs look like:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=restaurant+bus+tub&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=restaurant+bus+tub&sc=3-18&sp=-1&sk=

Just plastic tubs, but they have hand-holds on the sides. They're for clearing the dishes from a table at a restaurant and are thick-walled and really durable. They're meant to be washed in a commercial washer so can stand heat, and last for years and years. I've always gotten them new (at Sam's club or restaurant supply stores), but I'll bet there are some restaurants that get rid of the older ones you may be able to get for free.

lol, I just realized that I could have looked that up, . Thanks. I will keep those in mind for future collected trees. I have also found smaller mixing trays for about $5 at home depot but they don't have the depth of the bus tubs. That depth would have been perfect for an american hornbeam I collected a few weeks back.
Thanks

Ted

Hi Ted,
No problem. When I started using the bussing tubs, I was still potting in the concrete tubs too. I still have the concrete ones now, but basically only use them while repotting as a tray to catch the soil. I had one or two bend on me while I was trying to move a tree and it nearly uprooted the whole thing, so have put them to storage now. But the size is very wide, and if you need it, they're good to keep on hand.