Aftercare is the most important part of yamadori collecting. Skill and technique in collection helps with aftercare, but proper aftercare can mask many collection mistakes that are made early on.
Here are the root balls I came back with once they were unwrapped:
I could find a good photo of the last tree’s root ball. The first and last root balls partially fell apart while opening them. I think cleaning up the straight thick roots would’ve helped greatly in securing the root ball together well.
The middle tree is the only one I ended up leaving in a pot after all was said and done. But below I prepped this tote with a small layer of coarse sawdust as Randy Knight suggests in his video for Mirai Live.
I then blocked off portions of the container that would’ve left a huge pocket of pumice with leftover slabs I’ve collected that didn’t have any homes for this coming repotting season. I did this to not keep any areas too wet. The reason this happens is that the roots are really what help remove water from the soil during the winter months.
Here are the three trees potted up. I ended up moving the smaller two trees into the sawdust/heeling-in bed the next day to be safe. I didn’t like the root balls of either of those two trees enough to chance them in full sun and with such a large volume of pumice surrounding them.
I laid down two layers of weed cloth to keep the roots from growing into the ground over the next year-ish.
The next steps are the place the root ball (or the bareroot tree) on the ground, secure it, and pack coarse sawdust around it. Randy Knight explains several times that there is something about contact with the ground that drastically increases the survival rate of collected trees.
This is the photo of the smaller of the two trees that I pulled out once I got it out of the pumice. There are plenty of fine roots, but the soil stayed in the bucket for the most part. It should be fine in the long run with the sawdust bed.
I’m keeping a close eye on the trees left in the sawdust bed. Hopefully having higher temperatures during the daytime with nearly 80% humidity and shelter from the wind will be enough to help these recover enough. Updated photos with new growth will be available once they happen.
