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WRENCHING. PUDDLING. BAMBOO METHOD. 
( 4 ) Wrenching and Puddling. 
W penciling is well understood and constantly practised by professional 
nurserymen and gardeners. It immensely increases the chances of success in 
lifting and moving evergreen plants, and is especially important in handling 
eucalypts. The principle of it is the severance of all long roots without removing 
the plant from the soil; and the almost immediate result is the formation of a 
denser and more fibrous root system. Wrenching is usually done as soon as rains 
begin to fall in autumn; but it may be done during summer provided there is 
sufficient moisture in the ground to ensure a prompt formation of new rootlets. 
Early sown plants that are becoming too large may be checked and retarded by this 
process. A second and later wrenching may then be found desirable. In dry 
seasons every wrenching should be immediately followed by a liberal spraying with 
water. 
In nursery practice the plants are lifted three weeks to a month after the 
autumn wrenching, sorted into sizes, counted into small bundles, puddled, and lined 
in, or replanted in a close row, to be further hardened for the final planting. 
Instead of lining in, the puddled plants may be immediately rolled in wet sacks, 
carried to the planting ground, and permanently planted. Many of the eucalypts 
so strongly resent transplantation that the greatest care is needed to ensure success 
in handling them. It is for this reason that so much stress is laid in this place 
on watering and puddling. A good puddle is made with equal parts of clay and 
thoroughly decayed cow-yard manure mixed to a thin paste with water. If the 
weather is dry, the planter should carry each fresh supply of plants taken from 
the wet sacks in a bucket with their roots just submerged in puddle. If upon 
planting out it is found that, in spite of wrenching, the plants have made too 
much growth and are likely to die back, they may be cut down to within two or 
three inches of the ground and thus given a chance to sprout again from near the 
root. Overgrown plants have in many instances been saved in this way. 
( 5 ) The Bamboo Method. 
There may be mentioned here yet another method of propagating eucalypts. 
It consists in raising the plants and conveying them to the permanent planting 
ground in short sections of the hollow stems of bamboos. In South Austialia, 
where immense numbers of plants have been raised in this way, the bamboo Arundo 
donax has been used and grown expressly for the purpose. The little tubes all 
cut to one length with a suitable circular saw, are placed upright close together 
in a bed of sand or soil on the floor of a shade-house and filled with humus. Two 
or three seeds are then dropped into the orifice of each tube When the plants 
have made a start in the shade-house bed they are lifted out and placed in boxes to 
be hardened off and prepared for despatch to the planting ground If seveial 
plants are found in a tube, it is easy to reduce them to the strongest. W he er 
this method is practicable in New Zealand depends upon the possibflity of growing 
a sufficient quantity of suitable bamboos. In view of the rising cost of wood for 
boxes and piper for pots, the question may be worth consideration and experiment. 
