Winter Projects

I'm pretty new to the forums, and posted about some of this in the introduction threads, but thought I'd start a stand alone thread to track my winter projects process.

At the beginning of winter I mostly defoliated my schefflera. At that time I also took a look at the roots which I'm trying to train over a rock. I repositioned a bit and removed moss that I had been using to help keep the roots moist. I've my plastic barrier in place to keep some soil over the roots, but have started exposing them more. At this point I have lots of new leaf growth which I'm hoping will keep going strong until spring. At that time I may then and if they are large enough at that point do some (very) light wiring or weighting.

Three of the bigger branches I trimmed from the schefflera were potted to see if I could root them. If they all take off I'm thinking about trying to arrange them together, but I imagine that I'll need at least a full year of really letting them go before I really start making any real plans for them. It's now been about a month and they are still hanging in there. No new growth but I take it a good sign that they're still alive. I planted some ficus trimmings at the same time and they gave up the ghost in about a week.

Finally, I planted 18 pomegranate seeds about 3 weeks back. I know have at least 5 that have started coming up. I'm not sure what I'll ultimately do with them, but I heard they were easy to grow from seed and could be used for indoor bonsai, so gave it a go.

Winter Progress Update

Ok, here's a little update and a question on the plants I'm working on this winter.

First, the pomegranates grown from seed seem to be doing gang busters. I had 11 sprout, one of them has since failed; it sort of pushed itself out of the ground rather than sending the root down. Several are already putting on true leaves.

My question is, if I want to separate them some to let them take off better how long should I wait to do this? I don't want them too close and competing with each other, but I also don't want to damage them when they are fragile. When I do transplant I plan to snip the tap root a bit to encourage radial growth.

The additional updates are on the scheffleras.

The trimming I planted didn't seem to do so well, the stems rotted rather than putting off roots on two of the three. Surprisingly their leaves still seemed healthy but I just let them go. The third one still seems to be doing ok, the base of the stem still looks really healthy and there are small signs of new growth starting. I did not check it's roots directly.

Finally, I decided to re-place the big schefflera. I've been trying to train him on a rock for over a year, and when I recently uncovered the roots (shortly before the first post in this thread) I could see that I didn't get very good contact between the roots and the stones and root placement wasn't very good. So yesterday I decided to re-place him on a new stone, a lava rock I recently picked up. I got a more even spread of the root trailing down the sides of the rock, and really got them tied up tight next to the stone. I meant to take photos throughout the process, but forgot, so only have this one final shot to share.

To get the base of the plant relatively flush against the rock I ended up having to have the stem more upright. I had been going for more of a slant character, but may need to rethink how he'll eventually be styled. I'll let the new growth that is currently happening go for a while before I start making plans.

Thoughts on where to go from here would be appreciated. Photos above probably give you a better sense of limb structure.

Nice tree and nice collection in the closet behind as well hehe