Most of them survived

In October 2015 I wrote about a newly acquired Stinkwood tree which was drowning in Maple seedlings.

Weeds and seedlings - October 2015

With a little gentle poking around in the surface soil I was able to extract 25 seedlings, each of which was planted in a small plastic cup with drainage holes.

23 of them survived.

For the last year they've been living largely untouched on the lower shelf of a small stand in a fairly sheltered area - a spot chosen to protect them from the hail which has left some of my better trees looking rather the worse for wear.

Now they've had a chance to grow a bit its time to start putting movement into some of their trunks.

Before starting work I decided to bring them inside for a family photo:

23 seedlings - January 2017

That was when I discovered that, while the front ones had been growing vigorously, some of those at the back were still tiny and were nowhere near ready for me to work on.

Size comparison

Clearly those needed a lighter spot.

I decided to relocate some of the other trees on the stand so that the smaller seedlings could be moved forward without compromising the position of the bigger ones.

After returning the weakest trees to the stand I was left with 15 trees to wire. I've started work but it will probably take a few days to wire them all.

I've been fairly conservative with the movement I put into the biggest tree.

Tallest tree after wiring

I'll try to be more adventurous with some of the others.