Moving a young, volunteer maple tree

This maple grew up in a border, at my house in Vancouver. No room there. I decided to move it to the place in Battleground.

This takes me back to when I was a boy. Often a neighbor or family member would have a volunteer tree, and give it away to someone who needed a shade tree. It's a nice memory.  People should do that now.  It would be neighborly, and promote successful, locally adapted species and varieties.

I guess most trees now are clones, grafted to seed-grown rootstocks. Then grown in field-nurseries.  Then bare-rooted, shipped, and sold, or bare-rooted, shipped, and sold to big box stores or nurseries, to be resold. Nothing wrong with being a clone, but it means the tree is probably shipped from a distance, the variety or species may not be locally adapted.  I've seen tropical species sold here.  They won't survive.  The lack of genetic diversity gives propensity for widespread disease, and loss of mature specimens, years later. I'm guessing that a tree on its own roots is more vigorous, but I don't know that.

I have also read, starting with a small tree, it will adapt quickly and surpass trees that were planted at much larger size.  This tree is now plated about 25 feet from the red maple, we planted a few weeks ago.  So we can have a "competition".  Will the little tree catch up to the big one?  Not a fair competition.  They are not identical varieties.  This little tree may or may not be a "red maple".  Acer rubrum.  The leaves look more like red maple than Norway maple, Acer platanoides.   There is also Acer macrophllum, the indigenous "Big Leaf" maple.  This does not quite look like those, either.  Time will tell.

As with other trees, I chose a generous distance from the tree and sliced vertically, making a circle around the tree.  This is a small tree, about 3 feet tall.  I think it sprouted from seed last year.

Continuing the circle.  One side is a short, retaining, stone wall about one foot high.  That made digging easier.  I did not have to dig on that side.

Then the trench, dug farther from the tree.  There didn't turn out to be much root.  I don't think any roots were cut or broken.  That will make for easier adjustment to its new environment.  This area has been enriched with lots of compost.  Digging was easy.  It's been dry for most of the summer.

I placed the tree into a plant container for transport.  I was not able to plant it last night.  So I watered it thoroughly.  Holes in the bottom prevented water-logging.  No wilting at all.   Looks as good as it did before digging.

Now in the ground.  I've been reading, it's better to plant trees at slightly above ground level.  That makes for better drainage.    It may be an issue for compacted soils.  This hole drained very quickly so it is not compacted.  I usually plant bought trees at approximately ground level, as close as I can determine.  It can be difficult to judge.  It's not rocket science.   This tree was "happy" choosing it's own level, so that's were I replanted it.

Filled in, watered, mulched with compost.  Now we await fall.

Spider Web

This morning.  The spider is your friend.

Roots, one month later

I planted this little, container-grown pine about one month ago. Already I saw it was a bad choice of location, and moved it.

Lots of little roots, a half inch long. The soil just fell away. I tried to move with a bigger soil clump but it fell off. I don't think the roots were damaged. It's nice to see that they started growing so fast.

Not the same pine as above, but treated in the same way that I treated that one, initially. This is a bush-type pine, mugo pine. I like pine trees a lot. I don't know why. A disadvantage of buying late in the season, is the roots wind around the container. The circle of roots does not allow for spreading into surrounding soil, weakening and potentially killing the tree, some time down the road. When they encircle this much, I make multiple cuts to discourage encircling and allow new root growth in an outward direction, into the new soil.

I pull away roots that are no longer connected to the plant, and gently spread the cut parts to prevent the "pot in soil" effect. I think it will recover and grow just fine.

Onion and Chive update. Raised bed.

Already, the Chinese chives are filling in with new leaves, stout and firm. The smaller, finer "Illinois rescue" garlic chives are filling in faster than the Chang Chun culinary Chinese chives.  The Egyptian Walking Onions have many new shoots as well - some 3 inches tall.  I think about 2/3 have started growing above the soil.  Fast. Both the bulbs and the topsets are growing fast. There are 2 bunches of cilantro that I planted a week or two ago.  Almost ready to eat.

The Yellow Potato Onions are sending up new shoots.  That's about 2 weeks?  No garlic up yet. I'm not greedy, they will grow in their own time.

Moving a big forsythia bush

This bush was in a bad place.  Dry, north side of the house, shaded on 3 sides.  It was droopy and not enough room.  I grew it from a cutting about 7 years ago.  This bush had branches too tall for me to reach the top, so about 9 feet tall.  But all of the leaves were wilted. They have been repeatedly wilter most of the summer. I don't water it enough.

Doesn't look great, but on planting and watering, the few remaining leaves perked up nicely. My theory is that forsythia is so tough, and cuttings root so easily, and it does have a good root mass. So I think it will have a set back, and of course won't bloom next spring. But I think it will establish and be a nice bush by next summer. Pic to add tomorrow after it has the cool night to soak up water. Added the next am:

The forsythia leaves perked up nicely. I think it will do OK.