This is a tree that I dug spring of 2018. It was growing in duff on bare rock and I just rocked it using the jin as leverage and the rootpad peeled right off the rock. Of all the tree’s I collect, Subalpine fir growing on bare rock are some of the easiest in terms of collection and aftercare. They almost always have fine roots close in to the trunk, big structural roots to hold them together and don’t have long runners.
It is still not styled aside from a few guy wires to droop some of the branches. The jin still had bark but was dead when I collected it. After clearing the bark, it had clearly been girdled by beetles. I plan on making every branch off the main trunk into a separate Apex to create the krummholz form you often see where all the lower branches spread out into separate shrubby apexes.
