Collecting Oaks

Well headed over to In-Laws' house to dig up some live and water oaks. I have collected other species before but this will be my first time with Oaks. Any tips with collecting this species I welcome. I will post tomorrow some pictures from the dig.

I got 3 collected. One 3cm , 5cm, and 9cm.

Oh and this is my 200th post. Small Win!

www.bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATquercus%20ro...0and%20repotting.htm

Here is how Harry does it.
I planned to do it like that last year, but due to an ongoing clearing of the place where it grew I was forced to save it last minute in march already.
It is doing fine nevertheless.

Thank you Krištof
I am going to do the same as Harry with these 3.


From Left to Right:Swamp Laurel Oak, Southern Live Oak, and Southern Live Oak.

Closer view:

One tip with oaks from experience is they really need their mycorhizal root fungus and original soil. If you can't plant them in that then I'd find a few oak saplings t and dig down 3 - 4 inches. You are not interested in the sapling, just the soil. Carefully remove soil near the roots and add it to the pot with your collected trees so that the introduced soil can spread its goodness to your potting material.
The other way I do this is to put a collected oak into a pot with an established oak. I slip potted an oak I'd had for years into a bigger pot which accommodated the new tree, and then added soil so they could grow together.

I think this is as important as ensuring the roots don't dry out which I suspect is the reason for the success of the bonsai4me technique. Oaks hate having their roots disturbed.

As you refer to Haaries work.. Do note his trees are a slight bit bigger. I wrote some things about this in the past. So to avoid re-writing: www.growingbonsai.net/size-matters/