On our return from the collecting trip we made a start to the potting up. Well, Phil and I did 🙂 Stephen starts late and finishes early!! He kept talking about needing some sleep, you’d think he had worked all night before coming out collecting 🙂

This was my garage before Phil and I started. I wanted to cry, totally knackered after the weekend away and a full day humping tress down a mountain!!

We started with the Spruce. They were potted into Sphagnum moss specially imported from Willowbog for the job 🙂

We worked until we were seeing double and called it a night. Stephen came back the following day and we finished off the remaining Larch. This is what greeted us in the garage, only 12 Larch left. Not a lot of photos taken here as it was a hassle taking gloves on and off!

The tunnel was emptied out to make room for the new arrivals and we managed to fill it.

It was good to see trees out again after their Winter protection, albeit rather haphazardly dumped onto benches!!

I’ll keep you posted with how these trees progress or die 🙂 I think we should be successful with most. One very nice Spruce had little root and we expect it to die but you never know!!

Managed to squeeze in a collecting trip with Phil and Stephen on Tuesday. We had planned to spread the collecting out over a few years on this site but the land owner moved the goal posts and we only had one day to get what we wanted! This meant lifting way more trees than we had planned for.

Phil and I set out early, Stephen was joining us after he finished work. A few swans followed us West, I thought birds flew south!!

Phil strides out into the site on the hunt for decent Larch.

First one of the day.

We were delighted that the trees could be lifted in few few minutes. They had rooted into the top layer of moss and no tap roots were going into the poor peat soil below. A quick circle with the spade and out they popped.

We then had a closer look at a few of the Spruce and were delighted to find massive trunks. These were trees that had been cut just above soil surface many years ago but a few had remaining low branches that have developed into squat powerful trees. We thought they would be a nightmare to collect but had this first one out in 10 minutes.

We moved on to this even better one. Probably the pick of the bunch. I had looked at this one a few months ago and couldn’t get my hands around the base. It’s as thick as my thigh. The obvious top leader was removed leaving a nicely tapered trunk.

Part of the view. A cloudy but mild windless day, perfect for collecting. Stephen, Bonsai Baker, eventually turned up once the hard work was done and we had enough lifted to fill his car already. We moved on a little further and collected a few more Spruce with lighter trunks.

We humped the booty down to the main Larch area. Dopey and Happy whistling while they work, the other 5 dwarfs will be along shortly behind them 🙂

We them moved to another area with larch and collected what we thought we could handle and fit in the trailer!

Stephen checks out another one, you can see the shari on the trunks caused by the wild goats that roam the mountains here.

Another Spruce.

We get the trees back down to the car and get the trailer loaded up. Phil gulps down his usual Red Bull and Stephen is either eating a Mars Bar or chewing a wasp!! The stone is actually suiseki size 🙂

We had spotted a very nice Lodgepole Pine and went to investigate.

When we cleared the top moss off we found out that the roots disappeared into the rock. The chances of collecting this and getting it to survive are slim to none. We covered it back up and left it for others to enjoy.

Packed up we moved on. Room forHappy in the trailer 🙂

We found another site for Larch lower down. Still Japanese Larch but much redder bark

Phil found another Pine but alas, it was also rooted through rock.

He then spotted a Spruce and got down for a closer look. So tempted to deliver a size 11 boot to the target presented!!

We even managed to spot the herd of wild goats that had helped us with the shari 🙂

Some nice mature forest too.

Phil decides to try a Le Mans Start for the trip home and some potting up 🙂

We even found a new site for Hawthorn! Different land owner but worth further investigation I think!!

I post photos from the potting up tomorrow.