SvetSad
Senior Member
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:57 pm
Location: Indianapolis IN

Rocks for ROR

I recently went on a trip to New York, I was in the area of Seneca Lake. The house we stayed in had a creek behind it, so I decided to pick up a few rocks for possible ROR, but since I'm still new to all this I really didn't know what to look for. Before realizing it, I picked up 7 rocks that seemed interesting. Here is a pic of all of them together

[img]https://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z375/SvetSad/Rocks/photobucket-6054-1344799174757.jpg[/img]

and some closer views

[img]https://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z375/SvetSad/Rocks/photobucket-11224-1344798952671.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z375/SvetSad/Rocks/photobucket-25160-1344798894180.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/z375/SvetSad/Rocks/photobucket-19704-1344798797917.jpg[/img]

I'm not planing on using them really soon, but I did have a couple of questions.

1. How do I prep the rocks to be tree ready?

The rocks did come from fresh water creek, but due to the drought there wasn't much water, so all the rocks were found in dry areas. (altho the drought up there doesn't seem much like a drought compared to Indiana)

2. How would I attach the rock to the pot? (if these rocks are even good for ROR)

tomc
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Posts: 2661
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:52 am
Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

SvetSad wrote:I recently went on a trip to New York, I was in the area of Seneca Lake. The house we stayed in had a creek behind it, so I decided to pick up a few rocks for possible ROR,

I'm not planing on using them really soon, but I did have a couple of questions.

1. How do I prep the rocks to be tree ready?
Store them some place that you can find them when you want them. A year or three after collection (for me anyway) its easy to loose them.
The rocks did come from fresh water creek, but due to the drought there wasn't much water, so all the rocks were found in dry areas. (altho the drought up there doesn't seem much like a drought compared to Indiana)

2. How would I attach the rock to the pot? (if these rocks are even good for ROR)

Gravity should keep the rock in your pot. Possitioning your new tree to its new rock needs some jute or other twine. If you pack soil well with a chopstick it should wedge rock to its preffered place.

ROR starts out with a smaller tree with nice bendy roots. I use an overlarge pot to keep tree & rock fully immersed for the first several years.

You tree is going to need untill about year four or five looking like a tree just sitting in dirt. The soil line/root structure isn't going to be exposed for a good long while, and even then in stages.

Each spring when Its time to root-prune and replace soil, your going to want to spend a little time looking at the " money veiw" of your developing roots in relationship to your 'front' of the whole tree. A turntable can be helpful.

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Gnome
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Posts: 5122
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2006 12:17 am
Location: Western PA USDA Zone 6A

SvetSad,

This thread should give you some ideas.

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18867

I believe there are several other threads scattered about this section of the site.

Norm



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