Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Whitesbog scounting trip.

J.W. Burton, Paul Bemish and I rode out to the Whitesbog Cranberry/Blueberry Farm on a scouting trip for collecting in the Spring. Very neat place. Lots of open space, lots of lakes and lots of cranberry bogs which are currently being harvested. Yum, yum. Jay's nephew owns the farm and we have his permission to both trespass and collect.

We found a number of areas with a prolific amount of pines, white cedars(?), oak and holly which can be collected this Spring. Should be easy since the soil is so sandy. We will have to see how many of these trees are independent and how many are the continuation of roots from mother trees. We marked a number of likely candidates and we will see what happens this March and April.

Here are some photos:



This is a very low type of little grass or shrub which may make an excellent accent plant. Seems to grow right in the pure sand. I don't know what it is but I will try and find out.



We marked a number of small pines like this. They were out in the open and didn't seem to belong to any big pines that we could see. Very bushy, very conical and very, very healthy looking.



I think we found about 20 of these of various sizes that are there for the taking. How they will take to being potted and clipped, etc. should be interesting.




Here is Paul looking over an unused irrigation canal which has become overgrown with trees of various types. Most are too hard to get to but you can collect some on the edge (just don't fall in. :-))



This is Jay standing next to a white cedar. We're not sure of the species but we only found them right on the border of water streams or lakes or ditches. This has a formal upright growing habit and it is a very graceful and pretty tree in my opinion. I pulled a very small one to see if Chase Rosade can identify it for us.










Here are some photos of the farm and the land it is on. Jay says there are 3,000 acres, mostly woods with a lot of bogs. The area holds deer, turkey, fox, racoon, maybe a bear or two and of course, lots of snakes. We had to remove a box turtle from one of the roads we were on. Definitely SUV country.

Monday, September 6, 2010

My Bonsai

Happy Labor Day my friends! Today is my favorite day of the year. After a verry long and hot summer, my trees finally got some quality time from me.
Today, all my tropicals were cut back after nice growing season. Pruning for movement was the order of the day.
My F. salicifolia "89" took the most time. Each and every branch tip was cut back to allow more sun and air into the canopy. Each cut was made after careful consideration of directionality. Before pruning, the apex was completely obscured by foliage. Hope to see everyone at the September meeting!