Old bottlebrush dig

[mdavis27]

Anyone have experience successfully digging a large, established bottlebrush? Got an old one at my parents house that’s easily 10+ inches across at the base. They’ve had it in the yard for around 15 years and it’s been pruned once a year so it’s still only about 3 feet tall. Trunk is one of a kind but I’m just wondering if attempting a dig at this point is futile.

 

[Watto]

A photo is always helpful when seeking advice or help. Having dug a few bottlebrush (Callistemon) it would be best to dig in April or May next year and as they are at your parents house waiting until then should not be an issue.

 

[Shibui]

Assuming bottlebrush is Callistemon species most species are quite easy to transplant. They will cope with quite hard pruning of roots and trunk. New shoots everywhere after cutting to old bare wood.
Best time for root pruning callistemon appears to be when they are active. Most of us down here transplant late spring or early summer for best results. In warmer areas callistemon survive transplant all year round.
I have not been successful with a couple of species so far but the more common garden types are well worth trying and make great bonsai.

 

[Soup Dragon]

Assuming bottlebrush is Callistemon species most species are quite easy to transplant. They will cope with quite hard pruning of roots and trunk. New shoots everywhere after cutting to old bare wood.
Best time for root pruning callistemon appears to be when they are active. Most of us down here transplant late spring or early summer for best results. In warmer areas callistemon survive transplant all year round.
I have not been successful with a couple of species so far but the more common garden types are well worth trying and make great bonsai.

Do you have any experience air-layering Callistemon? I have a 4 cm trunk that I'd like to take from one in my garden, but I don't know if they can be layered easily.

 

[mdavis27]

A photo is always helpful when seeking advice or help. Having dug a few bottlebrush (Callistemon) it would be best to dig in April or May next year and as they are at your parents house waiting until then should not be an issue.

The true issue will be pleading with my mother to part with it (may take longer than a few months lol)

 

[mdavis27]

Assuming bottlebrush is Callistemon species most species are quite easy to transplant. They will cope with quite hard pruning of roots and trunk. New shoots everywhere after cutting to old bare wood.
Best time for root pruning callistemon appears to be when they are active. Most of us down here transplant late spring or early summer for best results. In warmer areas callistemon survive transplant all year round.
I have not been successful with a couple of species so far but the more common garden types are well worth trying and make great bonsai.

That’s good to hear. As far as I’m aware this is just your standard, garden variety bottlebrush (callistemon) you’d find in any nursery. Again, they prune it back hard once a year and bounces back quickly each time. Additionally, we are in south Louisiana so even our coldest months aren’t really that cold.

 

[Shibui]

Do you have any experience air-layering Callistemon? I have a 4 cm trunk that I'd like to take from one in my garden, but I don't know if they can be layered easily.

I have not had to try layering callistemon but assume they would layer easily as cuttings are easy to strike. Some of the closely related melaleucs with papery bark develop roots like air roots under the bark.
Go for it.

That’s good to hear. As far as I’m aware this is just your standard, garden variety bottlebrush (callistemon) you’d find in any nursery.

There are only 37 different species of callistemon. Some are uncommon in cultivation but still around 10 species are grown extensively and from those maybe 50 or more varieties, cultivars and hybrids are now common in gardens here from tall trees down to prostrate shrubs, flowers from red through yellow and white so there's no such thing as standard garden variety over here anyway.
We can assume that whatever it is it will be one of the easier to grow species that has been imported for your gardeners.

we are in south Louisiana so even our coldest months aren’t really that cold.

'cold' appears to be a relative term. In Queensland they think 10C is cold but Victorians are still at the beach swimming at that temp. The growers who talk about year round collection for Callistemon probably have min temps of 3-5 C. If temps get below freezing I would hold off and dig when it warms up a bit. In my experience it can't get too hot for transplant Callistemon. I have dug some with daytime temps of over 40C for a week after the dig. They survived but not in full sun at those temps. Point is warmer is better for callistemon and many Aussie species unlike other temperate species.

 

[Ccome15]

Mdavis27, did you convince your mother to part with it? Have you or will you be digging it up this year?

 

[Mikecheck123]

I would hesitate to dig up a tree that big.

The work increases exponentially with trunk size.

 

[mdavis27]

Mdavis27, did you convince your mother to part with it? Have you or will you be digging it up this year?

I have discovered that she loves that tree maybe more than me. I’ll keep pressing but I’m thinking a cutting/air layer will be all I get out of her lol.

 

[Mikecheck123]

I was curious, so I did some quick math to illustrate the difference between digging out a 5 inch tree versus a 10 inch tree.

Assume that you want to dig out a roughly half sphere of dirt having a radius that is three times the radius of the tree.

That means digging out
1/2 * (4/3 * pi * r^3) OR

2/3 * pi * (1/2 t * 3)^3

For a 5 inch diameter tree, that means about half a cubic foot of soil, or roughly 40 pounds.

But for a 10 inch diameter tree, that means 4 cubic feet of soil, or basically 300 pounds.

 

[Shibui]

Good thinking and math @Mikecheck123
I have certainly noticed the big difference between small, medium and larger collected trees. Even bare rooted a larger trunk can weigh too much for many people to lift, not to mention all the extra time it takes to dig around all those roots.

 

[Mikecheck123]

Good thinking and math @Mikecheck123
I have certainly noticed the big difference between small, medium and larger collected trees. Even bare rooted a larger trunk can weigh too much for many people to lift, not to mention all the extra time it takes to dig around all those roots.

True. I'm sure the math on surface area of a sphere would show something quite similar, which would be a rough proxy for how much digging and root cutting is required.