Trip to Santa Ynez Valley

I went to Solvang today to do a workshop. Solvang is a little Danish community that is part of the Santa Ynez Valley. I did a workshop for a husband and wife, their daughter and grandson. It was a great family affair. They were very cordial and had some very good questions. First I critiqued the trees that they brought to work on and I explained what they should do with the trees to improve them. Then they went out to my nursery van and selected about a dozen trees to work on. Fortunately for me, they were 1 gallon trees and were not too difficult to shape. Each person chose the types of trees that they wanted to work on. I had quite a variety that I took. I took some satsuki azaleas, Atlas cedar, Japanese maple, trident maple, procumbens nana juniper, Chinese elm, cork elm and cork oaks. We took turns with each persons tree. I would ask them what they thought of the tree. Then I would start and explain how we should proceed with styling. I did some minor pruning and handed back the tree for them to wire. Then I would go to the next person and repeat the process. It took about 2 hours and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Throughout the day we had ash fall as we worked on the trees. There is a huge fire to the Northeast that has scorched over 30,000 acres in a matter of days. On my way home, there was another fire close by that was reported to be about 15 acres and very close to the freeway. When I got home and looked on the news, the fire had spread to over 30 acres. After I left the workshop I went to a local nursery in Solvang called Western nursery. I stop there occasionally to pick up some trees that I can not find elsewhere. They are wholesale and retail. Since I know the owner and manager, they give me good deals on the trees. One of the interesting trees that I picked up today is a Chir pine. The pine was neglected and was very straggly and sparse. I looked for trees with new growth towards the base. The beauty of the pine is that they have a very course, almost cork like bark, that is very rought textured. The trees were 7 – 8 ft. tall. I asked them for a saw and cut them down to two feet. The trees were in 5 gallon cans and has 3 inch trunks with a 4 – 5 inch root spread. My plan is to graft cork bark pine shoots to all the new growth and to place this pine in the ground. When the corking starts on the branches, it will balance well with the rough cork bark of the recipient Chir pine. One mans junk is another man’s treasure. I will try to let you know what happens with my wild experiment. George

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This post was written by George