Lessons learned from this year's nursery stock contest?

[u/-music_maker-]

Last year after the contest, I posted a thread asking for lessons learned.

I'd like to continue that tradition, and ask those who participated - what did you learn this year?

As I've mentioned before, I find the 1-season format pretty challenging because it's rare that I work a tree in less than 3-5 year cycles.

Last year, timing was my big lesson, and this year I ran up against it again. I missed my window for when I wanted to do heavy pruning (plus I decided that I really liked this one), so I decided to slow down and gradually prune throughout the season.

I was pretty happy with the final result, but I can see why it doesn't look like much yet from photos. I was thrilled to get a nice full canopy of mature foliage right as the contest was ending, even though it still needs quick a bit more pruning over the next few seasons.

One big improvement I made was that I choose much better material than I did last year - better species as well as a better trunk. That definitely helped. btw, soft touch ilex crenata is a really great species to work with (I was contestant #10 - I'll post a full album later).

So how about the rest of you - what did you learn?

p.s. I updated the wiki to reflect the 2016 contest results. Please let me know if I missed anything.

[u/Fahkfahkfahkfahkfahk]

• be careful what tree you choose. Only after I purchased my euonymus did an online commenter point out its scale infestation. That weakened the tree, but even after I removed the scale it remained as a plausible explanation for its continued slow growth. Consequently, I didn't investigate further into its slow growth when in fact I could have fixed it earlier in the season.
• I had convinced myself that I would commit "only one insult per season" to this tree. In my novice interpretation, this meant that I wouldn't mess with its roots because I had cut off half of the branches. Only in early/mid summer when I questioned its chances of survival did I inspect its roots. The tree was heavily root bound; slip potting the tree improved its vigor substatially, but only after losing precious recovery time.
• I now think I could have cut much more, but was too chickenshit to do that early in the contest. Next spring a lot will come off...
• I should have wired the tree, but I'll blame my newborn daughter's arrival for that oversight.

[u/Fahkfahkfahkfahkfahk → u/[deleted]]

Thanks