The hornbeam raft saga nr. 1

In March of 2008 I was In Kastel, Croatia for the second symposium. they offered to dig a tree for me. So we went into the landscape and after quite a while I said 'this one'. It took three hours to get it out. First we had to make sure the land was free of mines. We had to watch for poisinus snakes and we had to get permission form the shepard. With hindsight I could have cut off a lot more right there. But at this time I did not know how the oriental hornbeam, Carpinus orientalis would react. Normally it is better to leave quite a bit and cut back a couple of years later. Oriental hornbeam can stand ruthless cutting right away. And another thing we did not know was whether this Mediterranean species would be hardy in Central Europe.