Ive got a hinoki cypress that i am planning to style into a raft this spring. Ive watched Ryans deciduos raft style stream with the hornbeam and plan on going a similar route. So i would do wiring and burying in the soil at the same time.
Now my questions that still is unanswered and i am a bit stumped by is how do i check for wire bite on the trunks/branches when they are buried in the ground?
Its clear to me that i can pull it up once in a while but that doesnt sound very helpful for root formation.
Does anyone here have any experience with this or any other good suggestions?
Wishing you all a jappy new year and thanks for any help!
From your description here, it sounds like you’re planning on wiring the tree before you plant it on its side. Is that correct? I might suggest planting it as a raft first, and then you can wire the individual trunks as you would new stock by driving one end of the wire into the soil, and wrapping it upwards around the trunk, without worrying about connecting all the trunks with a single wire. I have not tried this with Hinoki cypress, but at least in the region where I live, they grow relatively slow, so in terms of eventual wire bite, I found it takes a little while - like more than a year.
Thanks Josh! Yes the idea was to wire the new trunks before putting them into the soil. Similar to the way Ryan did it in his deciduos raft design stream in which he wired a hornbeam and then put it into the soil.
I have to rewatch it again, i thought there was a reason he wired it before he buried it. I just cant remember right now.