This is my entry to the 5-year native challenge. Taking into consideration this year is special in many aspects I decided to collect at least one tree for commemoration. Since my area was in a rather strict lockdown in March and April I did not want to risk encounters with officials. My moment came in May. I had a place where I was collecting Ash (Fraxinus ornus) some 10 years ago. I went to visit the site and after some scouting found one tree which seemed to be worth collecting. It took me about an hour to get it out from the soil. As you can see from the pictures tree had quite a lot of fine roots. Anyway, it would not be a big deal if it were not the case. For the sake of producing some educational content, I would for starters add few facts. Ash is from the same family as olives and lilac, Oleaceae. So knowing that if you can collect olive almost without any roots and it will catch up one could expect ash trees to behave in a similar fashion. Not granted but according to my experience with Fraxinus ornus, it behaves exactly like expected. All ashes I have were collected in later periods of spring, late April, or in the case of this tree beginning of May.
After bringing it home, the tree was submerged into a big bucket of water for the night. On the next day, some roots were shortened and the tree was planted into a large plastic pot. I was hoping to plant it into the large ceramic pot but none was spare in my garden. I used a mixture of pumice and rough peat 80/20. If I remember correctly I add few spoons of crushed horn fertilizer (I'm not sure about the correct translation of the stuff).
The tree is multi-trunk, has 3 major trunks, and a possible few smaller. I'm not yet certain how many trunks will stay but currently, I'm inclined to think about three. The thick trunk is about 5 cm wide at the top cut, I was roughly calculating rings and it is about 40 years old.
After placing it on the shelf I was not moving the tree at all for about two months. After the first week, I was looking for emerging buds on the trunk. After one month buds appeared. After another 2 weeks, buds were all over all trunks.
After bringing it home, the tree was submerged into a big bucket of water for the night. On the next day, some roots were shortened and the tree was planted into a large plastic pot. I was hoping to plant it into the large ceramic pot but none was spare in my garden. I used a mixture of pumice and rough peat 80/20. If I remember correctly I add few spoons of crushed horn fertilizer (I'm not sure about the correct translation of the stuff).
The tree is multi-trunk, has 3 major trunks, and a possible few smaller. I'm not yet certain how many trunks will stay but currently, I'm inclined to think about three. The thick trunk is about 5 cm wide at the top cut, I was roughly calculating rings and it is about 40 years old.
After placing it on the shelf I was not moving the tree at all for about two months. After the first week, I was looking for emerging buds on the trunk. After one month buds appeared. After another 2 weeks, buds were all over all trunks.
