Sunday, March 29, 2009

Ostrya carpinifolia - 11 trees forest

First good thing that came out of this project is that I cleaned our garden of eleven (11) plastic pots with small ostryas that were all around it. What a relief!
Ostrya carpinifolia is very similar to Carpinus betulus, although, it growes in warmer regions of Croatia closer to the sea, on southern slopes and preferes sandy grounds. It's called "black hornbeam" because of its black bark.
Last year we dug eleven Ostryas on one location. They are between 3 to 6-7cm in diameter and 30-70cm in hight. The trees were very dense with lot of branches, ideal for forest planting! Already prepared material! Trees spent last year in separate containers and all grew well.
Now it's time to put them together.



Container prepared for the forest is 120cm long and 55cm wide.

Once again, keep in mind that the trees were collected last year. They were planted in almost pure tenisit (that's crushed brick, similar to that stuff for covering tenis fields but bigger granulation, 3-7mm). The production of roots was amazing. Unbelivable dense tangled root net that was impossible to separate and untangle. We had to cut right through that dense rootmesh with a knife. This is a good example of how it's important to have a good drainage medium for establishing newly collected trees and not only that, for growing trees in containers in general.

Now, I use pure...PURE...PUMICE for growing trees in containers, for growing bonsai and nothing else. There is no need to mix anything else. This is not A SOIL, this is supstrate for growing trees or plants and it's superior to all other mixes. It can be pure tenisit, or pure pumice or somethin similar. If you find necessary, you can put one or two hands of peat in it but nothing more.

The rootball is fantastic and superior to everything you've ever seen before! All that expensive acadama and kiryu is unnecessary and poor comparing to this stuff. Acadama is compresible between fingers, and when you compress it you get pure mud. You cannot compress tenisit and it takes 20-30years to degrade in nature. Pumice is also much better than acadama. It is more porous and lighter.

Root ball in closer view. In just one season after collecting!!!!


Trees soaked in water while preparing other trees an the pot.

Initial arrangement.

Every tree was tied firmly in position.

Copper wires under the pot.

Almost done.



The surface was covered with mosses and some stones. That was not serious setting of soil surface, just like that...we did it in a few minutes, just to cover that ugly looking meter and a half of pumice surface. It came quite well.









9 comments:

  1. you've done a very fine job !!! respekt. i hope it will be a big and fine wood in the future. I did'nt know the tree ostrya before ... it really looks similar to carpinus betulus as you said.
    I was smiling when you told about the difference between tenisid and pumice contra the expensive akadama. I like to use lavagranulation, with 0-4 diameter and i got this for a few bugs in big bags... but the watering is more difficult ... its drying out very soon while the humusgranuats are not there for keeping the water so well.
    good luck for your trees ;-)
    avicenna

    ReplyDelete
  2. Congratulations, that´s a very impressive forrest ...wonderful!!!!
    You 2 did a great job :-)
    Greetings
    Igor

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very inspiring stuff, I like it a lot.

    -strikewolf

    ReplyDelete
  4. avicenna
    yes, ostrya is very similar to carpinus. This lavagranulation sounds good, just be careful with that "0" granulation, that is not good, but fortunately, it's washed out very quickly from the bonsai pot. These type of mixes dry very quickly so it is important to water and feed regularly. The good news is that it's impossible to overwater, that's important, and that aeration of supstrate is great, second to none, and that induces crazy root growth!!! All this principles Mr Pall taught us a few years ago. It works well, not just well, amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dobar pokušaj, no greška je to što nedostaju niska drva u pozadini. Svakako to se uvijek može ispraviti.

    To nema veze sa stilom ( PallSai) već sa perspektivom. Nedostaje dubina šumice.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dubinu je teško ocijeniti po dvodimenzionalnoj fotografiji. Kada budeš gledao stvar uživo, vidjet ćeš i dubinu. Upravo zato su i ona manja drva u poluprednjem planu desno, a naravno i druga niža u pozadini. Uostalom, jednostavno je dopuniti iako mislim, neće biti potrebno.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Imaj također na umu da ovdje gledaš drveće friško orezano, gotovo bez grana i manjih grančica, skoro gola debla...a tako ne možeš imati dojam perspektive. Sve će to biti potpuno drukčije do kraja sezone.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Stavi fotku od profila. Lijevo Desno.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jedva čekam da ova šumica prolista, odlično izgleda !
    Mario

    ReplyDelete