I like native trees and would like to collect a vine maple this fall. There is a mountain I go over about once a month that is about 3500' tall. It has vine maples that were already turning color when I went over a month ago. It certainly was not because of the temps being low, but the soil was very dry and I understand this makes them go dormant. If this is true, could they be collected successfully now? Thanks for help. Peter
Help/advice needed collecting vine maple this time of year
- Thread starter August44
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Traken
Shohin
Can you wait until spring? Not to say it can't be collected, but I believe you'd have much better luck grabbing it in the spring, right as the buds swell.
It is a wet sloshy mess up there in the spring so thought I would try now. I actually collected a small one when I went over a month ago that had turned color. After I got it home and repotted all leaves fell off but all the ends of the branches are still green so think it might be alive?? No new growth though. Maples are tough from my experience. What say you?
Leo in N E Illinois
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With all the talk of late summer repotting, I suspect right now is not a bad time to collect. Only way to know for sure is to collect a few test subjects and keep notes.
Late winter, early spring is the ''normal'' or ''received wisdom'' time to collect, before leaves open. But without leaves getting identity correct can be hit or miss. The advantage of late summer collecting, is you still have leaves, making identification much easier.
Before the Autumn Equinox, I would call it late summer collecting. After the Equinox, it is Autumn collecting. I would test collecting vine maple in both seasons. Make notes, keep track. Your average first frost is middle October, as is mine, I think Late Summer collecting will give better recovery time for the roots before cold sets in.
Middle and Late Autumn Collecting the trees will ride the winter out with damaged root systems, but also they will have rolled into it mostly dormant. It will be curious to see how this works for vine maple. Late Autumn collecting is done by some for Larch with good success.
And for those playing along at home, Vine maple is closely related to Japanese maple, close enough it can be used as understock for grafting Japanese maples. The results might give you some ideas to experiment with for your Japanese maples.
Late winter, early spring is the ''normal'' or ''received wisdom'' time to collect, before leaves open. But without leaves getting identity correct can be hit or miss. The advantage of late summer collecting, is you still have leaves, making identification much easier.
Before the Autumn Equinox, I would call it late summer collecting. After the Equinox, it is Autumn collecting. I would test collecting vine maple in both seasons. Make notes, keep track. Your average first frost is middle October, as is mine, I think Late Summer collecting will give better recovery time for the roots before cold sets in.
Middle and Late Autumn Collecting the trees will ride the winter out with damaged root systems, but also they will have rolled into it mostly dormant. It will be curious to see how this works for vine maple. Late Autumn collecting is done by some for Larch with good success.
And for those playing along at home, Vine maple is closely related to Japanese maple, close enough it can be used as understock for grafting Japanese maples. The results might give you some ideas to experiment with for your Japanese maples.
BrianBay9
Masterpiece
I've collected Ponderosa pine successfully in fall, at the end of the summer heat. Not tried deciduous though
Traken
Shohin
I do know I collected a siberian elm in July, and it's bouncing back just fine, but those trees are practically aggressive weeds. Typically, I'd have waited, but Leo loves having them removed from his farm, so no biggie if it died. heh.
@Leo in N E Illinois, do you think a later season collection would need to be more concerned with getting the fine roots than how in spring, we can often have no fine roots at all? I know the July elm had no roots to speak of and it is growing, but that was a month ago. Would September be potentially enough time to grow a root system that would survive the winter?
@Leo in N E Illinois, do you think a later season collection would need to be more concerned with getting the fine roots than how in spring, we can often have no fine roots at all? I know the July elm had no roots to speak of and it is growing, but that was a month ago. Would September be potentially enough time to grow a root system that would survive the winter?
Leo in N E Illinois
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Perfect, I would go ahead with the experiment.
Leo in N E Illinois
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Generally, no I would not worry about getting a large amount of fine roots. Especially for species that send out new roots easily. Elms you can literally treat them like large cuttings, but for more delicate trees, you do want some fine roots, but collecting too large a root ball can be problematic. Difficult to handle. And too much native soil can compact and become inhospitable in a pot.
