The adventures of Amazing maples

thanks, if you know the cat you know the name fits her. She just loves the yard and is a wonderful hunter of dragonflies.

 

This year I found a 100 year old japanese maple which needed a home. It took a few hours for the guys to dig it out and another hour or so to get the tree out of the yard. The soil was very wet and the tractor kept sinking in it. It was also a very tight fit to get it out between all of the existing trees. The good part was the tree had a somewhat small rootball but it was wet and heavy. It wieght around 4500 pounds.

here is a video of it getting out of the hole. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yesDXCu17R8

 

Fantastic specimen. Couldn't wait to see pictures of it in its new home.

 

Not being a gardener, I don't know how unusual that is to see such a pool of water where that tree was. Is that why the rootball was so small - have some of the roots rotted in all that water?

Is the house to be knocked down and that's how you came to acquire the tree?

It's all interesting - the tree, the circumstances, the excavation.

 

my heart is all aflutter... gorgeous tree, hopefully it settles into its new home nicely. make sure to post follow-up pictures once it leafs out, would love to see it :)

 

WOW!! That was an awesome video....and a gorgeous tree!

 

Great maples!!

I was wondering how do you keep check of all the maples grown in nursery pots, sitting on dirt. Every year most of my maple send out tap roots through the drainage holes into the ground.

 

Well today tops the cake, I just received my last load from Del Louck which included 35 plus huge maples 15 or so large maples and anothe 139 more. My yard is more stuffed than I could imagine. I can't wait for leaves so I can take some shots of the trees.
In talking with Del Jr today about all of these trees from his dad's place I mentioned that I think I have an illness and he replied that it is beyond an illness.
This deal with Del was a lot of fun. I have a lot of work a head of me to shape a growers tree into a tree made for a garden. I am still trying to figure out what to do with them all

 

I'd be happy to take some of them off of your hands.....;)

 

You are more than welcome to come get some. Now the light ones are about 30lbs and the large Aj 'Lovett' came in at over 2000lbs. The other fact was Del did just give them away, I had to put a number on them higher than everyone else who looked at them.
I will get a photo from Del jr of what his last load of trees looked like coming up the freeway. Del did a great job delivering me the goods.

 

I wish i lived close enough to see all this! And how generous of Del!

 

I'm pretty sure he meant "didn't just give them away" lol!

 

You got that right, Del Sr was in love with his trees and he did not just give them up. It took some help from Del jr to get the whole deal done.
Del jr brought up 4 huge loads of trees, that was not cheap. I had Pablo and his brother down at Del's place for three days digging out the trees. Then there was the equipment to load the trees down in Oregon and equipment and people to unload the trees here.
This was not a cheap undertaking.

I have added some photos of the trees from Del

 

Here are some other new additions for 2013

There is a
Shaina
Koto no ito (tied up)
Fireball
100 year old plus dissectum

 

Man those are nice trees. I'd be so worried about them living through the transplant though. After living so many years, then to have one die after trying to move it, it'd be heartbreaking! Plus the money lost :-( Well you obviously know what you're doing so good luck with hopefully zero losses!

 

When I started this whole adventure, it was digging 120 trees out of an overgrown japanese garden. Many of those trees came out with no rootballs, only bare roots. I quickly got them into pots with compost and woodchips and I had vertually no loss. In this case i did have pros dig the tree so i feel pretty good about the trees health. There were a few trees which had been in 20 gallon pots which grew through the pot. I have some 8" caliper trees in a 20" pot????
The diggers just chopped of the roots at the pot since it was too much to try and dig a rootball below the pot. We will see how these trees do. With our wet climate they should do ok. The big issue is keeping a 15' tall 15' wide tree standing with such a small rootball.

 

That 100 year old tree is simply gorgeous. Do you have any idea what kind it is? Please post a follow-up pic or two when it (& the others!!) leafs out fully.

Kevin in KC

 

Kevin

I have no history of the tree other than the date of the house where it was planted. It is not as big as some of the other 100 year old trees around Seattle but it does have a magical shape. I now am trying to find out more about these old trees such what they were like when they were originally planted. I assume they are just seedlings. I just am not sure if they were important as seedlings or larger trees or if they were propagated here in the USA.

 

I found a very old nursery catalogue from the early 1900's that sparked my interest in the introduction of Japanese plants to the US and the rest of the world. It's hard to find information. But here is a link to a post of my findings, if you have not checked it out already:
http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=76874

Here is a link to a photo of the catalogue page that discusses Japanese maples in detail.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/japanesemaplegarden/8315184160/sizes/l/in/set-72157632358077242/
It makes reference that export Japanese maples range from 18" to 4', but special fine specimens can be supplied. They also mention offering Acer stock for grafting.

(Helpful Tip: when viewing the photo on Flickr, click on the photo to see a larger size. If this is not large enough to read, then click on "View all sizes" in the upper right corner of the web page. Click on "Original" for the largest text possible).