Strike 2 :)

https://picasaweb.google.com/109925605636870079811

OK,this should be open to public.

It worked this time, great photos, huge roots; had no idea! And you have snow already. My husband cut the grass here last weekend. Wow!

Fascinating. I would never have guessed a tree that size would have that much root mass. Out of curiosity how exactly did you remove the tree from the ground keeping that much root?

What is that white stuff all over the ground? :)

It reminds me of one of those giant squids that washes up on shore from time to time,lol :~)

The tools of the job are in the photo. Solid steel, long handled King of Spades spade with their longest blade, heavy cultivating fork and long handled shovel.

My soil is rather light so in areas that have been nursery for a while and I've removed most of the rocks this kind of excavation is not too difficult. However this tree was on the nurseries edge so I spent almost 2 hours and a lot of exhausting cursing getting it out. Rocks are what makes this work really hard in my soil.

I wouldn't want to try this in a clay- and I have. I tried to move, by hand, 3" caliber apple trees from an orchard that had been sold that was planted in a heavy clay. I spent a couple hours trying to move one tree and got nowhere.

I ended up renting a man with a tree spade. I knocked the soil from the balls for easier transport and the trees did pretty well as huge bare roots. However, a tree spade doesn't get much root, and other species would probably have been killed with this method. After a year of recovery with all fruit removed these apple trees were well on their way to establishment in new sites.

Anyone interested in the study of roots and their growth, would enjoy a book by Robert Kourik called "Roots Demystified". Much previous work over the last hundred years has been incorporated into the book. Al