My previously dying houseplant suddenly bloomed..

Ed Gilman is awesome. That book is seriously the absolute gold standard and he is an awesome guy personly. I've met him several times. That's the best thing about this industry, by the way. The people are 90% awesome. Assholes don't seem to care about trees. Did I send you videos of his fans that he uses to test different pruning techniches against storm damage?

I'm genuinely surprised that Modern Arboriculture by Shigo isn't on there. I actually don't know that book that is listed on there by him, but now I'm going to order it. Do yourself a favor if you can afford it, get modern arboriculture. Most of the other english stuff that is in there are also the standards used here like knots, climbing, and rigging. Looks awesome! I'm jealous!

I'm glad you like it. I really wish I could read the rest of that. What an awesome fucking language. Please don't take offense to this, but is this the same language as the song Loituma? I just kind of want to know what it's supposed to sound like.

If you're on tumblr or anything, add me. Keep in touch and keep up the hard work! I post tree news on there sometimes, but it's pretty specific to the US. I've decided to start taking high quality photos at work this year to get a bank of photos to get ready to start doing speaking engagements, so I'll post those too.

Want to hear something cool? Sometime between the 15th-21st I'm going to meet with Justin Timberlake and a guy from another company about a biochar product they're about to put on the market. I've seen all the proprietary studies they've done over the past 5 years and it's astounding what it does for root growth, water/nutrient retention, and a physical support system for mycor. It's branded by Mirimichi Green and was developed by my friend mark from Plant Growth Management Systems (if you're familiar with the ShortStop® product yet).

That's all proprietary information so don't tell anyone. There are like 8 different products geared for certain purposes like erosion control, soil decompaction, growing medium ammendments for nurseries, and other things. I've seen the results and what it does for street trees is fucking amazing. The root development is seriously miraculous against the controls and it makes nearly drought resistant. You seriously can't tell anyone though because they're talking with Walmart and stuff right now. I'm going to get some for personal use when I go up there though- I'm just lucky enough to know them. This stuff will be a game changer if it is handled right, and I think it will be. Timberlake is oddly 100% into it, like obsessively. That kind of celebrity will help a lot if he uses it at the retail level marketing, which is actually questionable.

After I get it, I'll take some pictures for you if you don't show anyone. There is still snow on the ground so I can't do anything with it yet, but you can see the bags and what it looks like. I want to touch and smell it. They're not calling it biochar though. Something like bio-activated carbon ammendments, but it's just heavily studied and developed biochar. If you do some research into it, that's how they got that golf course so famous. It was the first test ground.

Anyway, I'm trusting you not to tell anyone. Seriously. Don't tell your professors or anything. It will definitely get back to Mark and I might get sued. I just want to get you excited a bit.

I'm going to do some tests with it on my property with controls on the turf over the season too which I'll share the progress with you if you want. If they still have not released it to market yet, I'll find a way to let you know that is what the photos are of with a codeword or something. Well, I'll put it on my tumblr. I'll probably forget about these PMs when I'm working 15 hours a day.

Oh. Here are Gilman's fans. They're incredible! If you need a charity to give to The Tree Fund help University of Florida pay for those updated fans.

Stay excited because this field is growing so fast and getting so much more awesome every year. If you work it right, it pays very very well too. Just please don't end up managing a forest for logging. Do good work that you will look back and be proud of at the end of your life.

Ok. Sorry to write so much, but I'm really excited that this is real and you got back to me. I just got sent some power point presentations from Cecil in Copenhagen that I'd like to send you as well, but I don't know what they say yet. They're most likely urban forestry and green space references. I have to look them over first if you'd give me a while.

Anyway. Please have a tumblr and add me immediately so I know it is you and please please please don't tell anyone about the biochar or Justin Timberlake. I'm not a wealthy man and JT could absolutely bury me in lawyers.

Take care buddy. My name is Joe by the way.

/r/gardening Thread Link - imgur.com