Barberry yard-yamadori (burn pile)

I got a response from a contractor working on renovating a house when I put out an ad on Craigslist. I went to look at a juniper but saw this Barberry.

The Juniper was about the size of a VW bug so I decided to suspend that project since I didn't know where to start.

This Barberry was over 6 feet tall but seem to do able, considering I arrived at the site at about 5 p.m.

Below is the Barbary before I started digging this would become a clump style initially. I couldn't see that all these trunks actually are radiating from one central trunk below the soil line. The work glove in the picture for scale will soon have holes in it because of course Barberry has some robust thorns.

The hardest thing about digging was a piece of thick plastic about 3in down to prevent weeds from coming up. Later you'll see where this confused the tree and  there are a bunch of roots higher than I would have wanted them, and consequently were a pain to remove later.

In pictures above and below you can see the trench. The pickaxe made pretty quick work of it,although pretty tiring, after working all day.

Shortly after taking this photo I sat down and grab the thicker of the trunks and began rocking my body back and forth snapping some of the roots underneath. Luckily, there weren't any huge taproots although, I initially feared that when I started digging and didn't hit any roots too big.

I knocked off some of the soil with my so that I could lift it and place it in the bin below. I did some initial chopping down so it would fit in my car.

I cleaned up the dig site and put the tree in my car for the short drive home

With the root comb and spray nozzle on my hose I did my best to bare-root the tree. This was the longest part of the process because there were so many routes out of place above where the trunk should be. As can be seen in the above image.

Below you could see the roots. One side is a little bare hopefully it will will recover.

Below are few images taken of me hog-tying and working on the roots.

Here's the box I made out of pallet wood ready to receive the tree.

It mostly fit at the trim three or four routes back a little further to get it in the Box.

Below is what I imagine will be the front. You could also see that yellow scars that are typical of Barberry trees.

Here is one of the sides.

This photo is from the back.

We'll see how this tree response. I'd like to keep it a clumped just because of the size however a lot of these branches lack taper and I may have to cut down further. This tree should settle in this training box for two or three years just to have more root growth.

RIP: This tree I did not seal and the trunks dried out and cracked. Didn't make it past the summer.