Todays curveball

There’s a lot of things that can take a left hand turn with bonsai but this was a first. Where we live there are power line cuts through the woods where beautiful young loblolly pines grow. I was grooming one for two years. Branch selection, first decandling, trenching the roots. I was going out to cut the roots once more for collection this coming Feb. it had backbuds everywhere from the decandling. So loblolly respond very well to double flush techniques. I get there and the power company had been through and sprayed miles of them with roundup to keep them from growing in the power lines. We’ll that was a bummer.

Been there… ponderosa, fir, and larch… too late.
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Local process is a herd of people with chainsaws walking the high tension line clear zones every five years…
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Interestingly… they also hang extra large chainsaws from helicopters for larger trees invading the space… pretty awsome to watch…
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AND, use the helicopters to blow heavy snow off high tension lines.

Interesting. Where are you? I’m in Maryland on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay. They just roll through with trucks and sprayers. I know they do it but not on such a tight schedule. Too bad. This tree was like the fish that got away. It could have been really nice.

Ya, the local power company comes by and saws off the top of my 80 yo maples and sprays them with anti-growth hormones…
Im in Eastern Wa. / North Id. Millions of acres; miles and miles of public forests.
Large National Forests criss crossed by 50 foot high 50,000 volt high tension power lines. 100 foot wide right of ways. Brings power from dams and generation stations in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Canada to the big city users…
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I also haunt logging roads while fishing and hunting.
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HOWEVER, I have very poor luck in keeping collected trees alive longterm… If you have not done your survival technique education… plan ahead. Start small and learn to keep them alive. It justs LOOKS easy…
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I have better luck buying larger collected trees from the professionals collecters. Costs, but they are potted up and already hardened off and will survive…
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Bonsai On!