Mycorhizal Inoculant

I've been reading up on the soil "world wide web" of fungal mycelia. These organisms benefit plants and trees in many ways, and connect plants to one another. They transfer nutrition between plants and trees, bring nutrition from otherwise unavailable sources in the soil, improve root growth, stimulate top growth, improve drought resistance, and improve disease resistance. Apparently, disturbance of soil can reduce or eliminate some mycorrhizal mycelial webs, which take a long time to regenerate. Those disturbance include plowing, tilling, soil compaction, fertilizing, and pesticides. The marketing argument for inoculants is, they replenish the mycelial web at the place where it is most needed, the plant root. Technically, once inoculum is added, it should not be needed again.

Plant Success mycorrhizal inoculant list of species. I bought via Amazon.  The advantage is the variety of species.  Different plants benefit from different fungal species, with a lot of overlap.  By providing a variety of species, the thinking is that the ones that can become symbionts with the particular garden plant, will grow, and the others wont hurt anything.  Some plants can use multiple species.  Some mycorrhiza associate with certain plants and not others.

In order to apply at the roots, inoculant is best used at time of planting.  The granules are sprinkled on the plant roots, or in the soil that is then applied to the plant roots.   The alternative is to dig small holes around the plant and sprinkle inoculant into the holes, with the expectation that once against the roots, the mycelium will spread from root to root.

Mykos mycorrhizal inoculant.  I did not see a list of species.  I also could not find that on the website.  From other sites on the internet, it looks like Mykos is one species, Globus intraradices TRI 801, 80 spores per gram.  Reading on mycorhiza, Globus intraradices  is not so likely to benefit woody trees like this hazelnut.  I should have used Plant Success for this.  A lot of other plants should be happy with the G. intraradices so I will use up the package for them.  The main issue is that G. intraradices is an "endo" mycorrhiza, which lives within the root.  Many plants benefit from endo, but apparently a lot of woody trees benefit from "ecto" myorrhiza, which live surrounding the root.

Mushrooms.  I am not adventurous enough to eat them.  This part of the yard has a number of old, nearly decomposed, tree stumps.  There are mushrooms throughout the yard.  There appear to be multiple varieties.

Mushrooms are the fruiting structures of a mature mycorrhizal mycelium, responding to weather or other stimuli to grow and produce spores.  There are thousands of species.

This is one mushroom, near a spruce tree.  There are more of the same type, near other spruce trees.  Which leads me to suspect some species specificity.  Big mushroom.

Seeing mushrooms around the yard, makes me wonder if adding mycorrhizal inoculant is like taking coals to Newcastle.  Maybe.  The raised beds are, by definition, highly disturbed soils.  The first two were filled largely with granular soil from the hundreds of molehills that had baked in the sun.  That was easy to handle and they needed to be removed so mowing would not cause big dust-bowl quality clouds of soil.  So no active mycelia, I'm sure, but maybe lots of spores.   Even though about 1/4 of the volume of those beds was compost, I don't know the mycorrhizal content of the compost.  I suspect this compost's population is mainly bacterial and actinomycete, not mycorrhizal fungi.  No way for me to know, and I don't think anything is hurt by adding some inoculant.

Another argument could be made that the most adapted, most likely to survive and flourish, mycorhiza are the ones that were already growing here.  Valid argument.  I view adding inoculant as a boost for newly planted trees, shrubs, and garden plants.  Since I use lots of mulch and add lots of organic matter, this will be a "one time" effort.

I suspect that some (much?) of the market for mycorrhizal inoculant is in the home production of certain herbal products that I have no interest in growing and don't want to know about.   All I want from it is better trees, shrubs, flowers, and vegetables.

Moving a 10 year old Rose of Sharon

It needed room.  I had it in too small location.  This is a durable shrub, blooms well when other plants are wearing out.

I used the same approach as usual, so just posting pic of the shrub out of the ground, pruned and root pruned.  It lost a lot of roots, so I pruned the top back heavily as well.

Hard to see here, but the trunk is about 6 inches in diameter.  I've been pruning to keep it compact for all of it's life.  I suppose if I had not, it would be a tree now.

Not posting as a "how to" so much as a record for future reference.  I want to see if it survives.  I think it will be fine, but next year a but less vigorous due to root pruning.

Even without moving a shrub or tree from one place to another, root pruning is a legitimate technique to reduce vigor.  Not as extreme as this but I think it has adequate root to survive, and there is fall and early Spring to regenerate feeder roots before top growth commences.  The shrub will restrict its top growth based on the available feeder roots, so it be much more likely to survive than if I had done this while leafy.

Moving a 10 year old Brunswick Fig Tree

This was as big as I can handle.  I grew this tree from a cutting in 2001.  It came from a NoID tree in a vacant lot.  I have been calling it "Vancouver" because I don't have a solid ID.  I'm fairly sure the variety is Brunswick = Dalmatica = Magnolia = Madonna.  The figs are big, juicy, and sweet, but I lose most of the crop every year due to lateness.  Most of the figs fail to ripen in the cool wet late October weather.  I debated cutting it down.  Instead, I moved it to the Battleground place.  There, it ill have more sun, and maybe a little brighter sun.  Maybe that will ripen the figs a little sooner.

This location was becoming unkept, and so was the tree. First I pruned the suckers and pruned the top to make it easier to handle.  I pruned a bit more aggressively than I usually do.  It will lose all breba (summer figs).  That's OK.  Almost all of the breba crop falls off anyway.  That might make it produce more and earlier main crop (fall figs).  Or not.

I'm thinking that with the digging, I'll lose a fair amount of root, so the top also needed to be reduced. Figs have a very fibrous root system that spreads laterally, but doesn't seem to extend very deep. I think the top should regenerate OK. I was happy with the open center shape that I gave the tree with years of careful pruning.

I also pruned back all of the suckers.  I want to keep the open center structure, and have a single trunk.  The single trunk is easier to wrap with Tanglefoot to keep ants out of the figs.

It takes a lot of digging to move such a big tree. I started about 2 feet from the trunk.  after digging an 18n inch deep trench, it took more than an hour of slicing under the tree with the shovel, to free it from the underlying soil. Not a lot of roots going deeper. I had to prune 3 or 4, finger sized roots. That's my fat fingers, not dainty fingers. But still not a lot of big root was lost.

With heavy trees and shrubs, it helps to work a tarp under the root ball, and pull it around by the tarp. Less damage to tree and roots. It also helps to have a plank to slide the tree up onto the truck, and back down to the ground. Much easier on the back.

Now at the Battleground place.  There was a break in the rain.  The soil is a bit wetter than I like to dig in.  Wet makes it heavier and higher risk for compaction.  I was careful to keep it from compacting.

I'm always surprised, after digging under trees, to see that  most of the roots don't go deeper.  In my imagination, the roots are a deep as the tree is tall.  That is not the case.

Torn and broken branches and roots tidied up, with cleaner pruning slices.

Most of the weight was the accompanying soil. I'm guessing 200 pounds. This was heavy, hard work. Words were said. I dug an ample hole, planted, settled the tree in, and applied a donut of straw mulch. A little more trimming, cut the suckers closer to the trunk, and the branches to outward facing buds.  It's ready for winter, and then  next year.  We'll know then if I killed it.  I don't think I did.

Romeo Iris blooming in December

Here is Romeo, produced by Millet et Fils in 1912. I bought it mail order this summer. Having run out of room, I planted it in a container. A few weeks ago the raised bed was ready to plant, but this one had a flower shoot. So I placed it in a cool room, sunny window. Here it is today

The American Iris Society has a nice photo of this iris as it should look, as well as its history.

 I don't know if winter blooming can be done intentionally. This was unplanned. Romeo is a diploid bearded iris. Most of the flashy, big, ruffled modern bearded irises are tetraploid. During the year this iris was first sold, Woodrow Wilson won the presidency of the US, with 42% of the vote. Teddy Roosevelt was shot that year. The Titanic sank in 1912. Each new growth of an iris is a rhizome branch from the prior year's growth. So, in effect, this is the same flower that may have sprouted from seed in 1909 or 1910.

It doesn't look a lot like photos of Romeo. Maybe it's the odd timing, or the odd situation, or the growth medium. It's in a used potting soil. It may need May sunshine and warmth for true colors to develop.  Maybe it's mislabeled. I like it better than than the linked site. The colors have a sepia tone, like an old Kodachrome photo in a family album. Bought at an estate sale.

Moving a pair of HazelNut Trees

Squirrels were getting all of the nuts. I misjudged how much room these 2 hazelnut trees would need. They are too big for the space. They get lots of nuts at that size.  But without a raptor perched in the branches to feast on squirrels, there is no chance of me getting nuts. I wanted to cut them down. With more room, I moved them to the Battleground place. Even if the squirrels still get the nuts, the trees will give some privacy from the road. Plus, there actually is a raptor in the nearby trees.

I like hazelnuts.  It would be great if I get to eat some!  Come on squirrels, leave me just one!  According to wikipedia, "The Celts believed hazelnuts gave one wisdom and inspiration." also "The Hazel Branch, from Grimm's Fairy Tales, claims that hazel branches offer the greatest protection from snakes and other things that creep on the earth."  

It's hard to tell here.  There are 2 trees.  Each is about 8 or 9 feet tall.  The trunks are about 2 inches diameter.  These are 2 varieties of grafted hazelnut tree.  There are many sub-trunks sprouted from below the graft.

First, I removed all of the sub-trunks.  They did not have catkins.  I don't know if they would have produced nuts in a few years.  I wanted to stick with the named varieties.  This removes about 10 or 20% of the growth.  Which makes up for much of the root that will be lost in digging.

The branches are tied up to make it easier to dig and manipulate the trees.  I find that trees are quite fearful of being dug up, and tend to lash out at me with their branches.  Firm but gentle tying keeps them calm, and keeps my face free of lacerations.

The usual circular trench, with a twist because these trees are one foot apart.  That was a Backyard Orchard Culture technique.  I was stretching the technique by applying to hazelnut trees.  But for the squirrel issue, however, I think it worked.

This is a bit like separating conjoined tree twins.  Rather than causing more root trauma individually unraveling intertwined roots, I sliced between them with the shovel.  They didn't have as much root mass as I suspected.  As bare-root trees, I think the roots were compact at the beginning, and had not extended as far as a seed-grown tree might have extended.

I slid them up a board, covered with a well-tied tarp for protection.

My "thing" at the moment is mycorrhizal innoculant.  This is "Mykos".  Sprinkled on the roots for promotion of better root mass and drought resistance. I don't know if that really works.  I sprinkled about a quarter cup, guessing, throughout the root mass.  I pruned broken or torn roots to a clean cut.

Planted.  Charlie was such a help.  I left branches with catkins in place.  Since I removed a fair amount of below-the-graft growth, I think the roots can support making some nuts next year.  Minimal touch-up pruning was needed.  A few broken twigs, a couple of crossed branches.  I tipped the highest branches to outward facing buds, to encourage spread.

I also moved a Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' Smoke tree from the house in Vancouver. I really misjudged. I thought it would be a bush, at most 5 feet tall. It was 8 foot this year. So I pruned it back to help move it, and moved it to this location too. I don't know why I didn't look it up when I bought it - they can be 15 or 20 feet tall. This will be a better spot.  I'll keep it as multi-trunk.  It will be nice to look out the window at this tree.

The root mass was small.  It's about 3 years old.  It was very easy to dig up and move.  I read that deer don't like them.  The deer will let me know if that's true.

My other helper. He mostly helps by running off and barking at falling leaves. When siting here, he looks so noble.

This bush has maroon leaves through the summer and brilliant leaves in the fall. This photo was Oct 10.