Hello, Jim et al!

Every day on my way home from work, I pass by this very
interesting looking
tree along side the road. It is about eight feet tall, the
canopy is
approximately 10 feet across. The base of the trunk at soil
level is
approximately 8 inches across. It is a true double trunk, with
very gnarled
branches and beautiful, shredding, brown and silvery bark.

I'd love to have this tree in my yard, not to mention have it
as an
Imperial-sized Bonsai. Unfortunately, I seem to recall that
several years
ago you said Sparkleberry has a single tap root that attempts
to reach clear
through the Earth to China (My paraphrasing of your words!).
: )

Thus, I have two questions for you: 1) Have you done any more
research to
verify a collecting/transplanting technique; and 2) can the
branches be
air-layered.

There are any number of branches on this particular specimen
that would make
the beginnings of some fantastic bonsai.


It's not really a taproot. Sparkleberry (a.k.a. Farkleberry),
Vaccinium arboreum is a blueberry and like all other blueberries
is a thicket former. The trees reproduce by long runners, with
sprouts popping up along the runners to form new bushes. These
runners seem to have VERY few small roots; dig one up and you
have an upside down T, with the trunk being the stem, and the
runner being the crosspiece that goes off in both (or more)
directions. Since the entire thicket is really one plant, it
lives on nutrients provided by the roots of all the trees in the
thicket. What you get when you dig one plant up is a VERY small
part of the whole.

Large trees (trunks greater than 3 inches) are almost impossible
to dig (in MY experience). Trees up to 1 inch are quite
diggable, but get as much of the runner roots (in both
directions) as possible. And soil! You want all the fine roots
you can get.

They grow quite slowly, though, and I have never managed to get a
tree in captivity to develop that polished orange bark that the
big ones get.

I suppose they'd layer. Bark is VERY thin.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.

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