Ml_work

I ran across this last week by the road for trash pickup. I saw it had roots in tact with the tree and thought it may be something to work with. After getting it home I saw that it has a second tree coming through the root ball, but its root had been cut. So I don't think it will come back. You can see it in the second picture at the right side. I like the way the roots have wrapped around the bottom itself. What kind of tree is this? Is it worth keeping? I have it standing it water right now, it has continued to stay green.
Thanks,
ML

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Egroup

Would need an up-close shot of the foliage to tell you the type of tree, but I would not hold out a lot of hope on this guy. Unless you got him like right after being removed from the ground, you can expect a short life span... Just trying to be real with you man. That is a big tree/bush with very few viable roots left.

Putting it in water for a while is prolly the best thing you could do though. I might even recommend adding some Vitamin B1 to the water or a little Superthrive... remove a good bit of that foliage, as the limited roots remaining are prolly not enough to support so much growth... don't keep it in direct sun, and get it in some dirt within the next day or so. Add root hormone to the root mass before you plant, and hope for the best.

The roots wrapped around the base of the trunk like that look.... interesting but are not aesthetically pleasing from a bonsai standpoint and could be a sign it was badly pot bound in a nursery container before it was ever planted. Probably not much you can do to fix it though unless you air layer the whole tree right above that. Of course; just try to get it healthy before you do much of anything major like that.

Also,- I told you to remove a good bit of foliage, but before you remove all the foliage from any one branch, we need to identify the type because some trees will not back bud very well/ at all if you remove ALL foliage.

good luck with it!! - and get us a better pic when you can!

Ml_work

Egroup,
Thanks for your help, I will try to get a closeup of the foliage.

quote:
Just trying to be real with you man

I appreciate open honesty, this is not something I have put any time into. I am new to all this, but if I see a tree by the road someone has removed, its worth a try. My plan is cut it back to about a foot high, at 3 different levels as it has 3 trunks coming up, stick it in the ground and walk off. If it makes it great, if not, it goes on the burn pile later. I will try the B1 before planting and leave some foliage to help.

Quote:
The roots wrapped around the base of the trunk like that look.... interesting but are not aesthetically pleasing from a bonsai standpoint

aesthetically- had to look that one up !

I thought the wrapped roots would look good as a finished bonsai, but as I said, this is all new to me. I have read about all the details involved in the art of true bonsai, just may take some time (years) for it to all sink in. In the mean time I will continue to have fun, grow a few trees, kill a bunch of trees and ask a lot of questions!
I thank everyone for all their time and help along the way.
Have A Great Day!
ML

Egroup

Well, you are taking the right aproach- just try to learn as much as you can and FREE stock is the best stuff to work on while learning!! (as you said you can expect to kill a few trees, but sometimes that is jsut how you get to "know" them!)