It was time to work this guy over some.. last year I shortened it, then let a sacrifice grow out to heal the wound.
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Removed the sacrifice
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After just over one year in that pot, this is what the roots looked like!
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A little poking and prodding and cutting
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Nearly perfect radial roots! Left a little more than Inmight havebwith an older more established tree... this was the pot I decided on:
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Not a bad start... now I buried the roots a little deeper than i normally would to keep them protected and let them mature some more, generally as the soil settles a bit more and some washes off over time... they will get more exposed... the root flair and spread right at the base is amazing on this tree though i know it was hard to see from the cell phone pics. This is a kind of dumpy little pot. I tried some more colorful ones but they just didn't fit this tree right now. (Physically would have had to got too small with the roots), so I stuck with the slightly larger, plain old Chinese oval for now.
Still have some long straight branches on there I will remove... once I see it is healthy and happy this growing season I will cut back hard again and get to the shortninternodes I need, and I have a few that will go away entirely.
Yes it is early for repotting in most areas I know- temps here will be in the 60-75 range for... well as far as the forecasts will predict right now, so it is perfect repotting season in sc IMO. I have never had a tree killed because of cold Spring weather and I have been repotting in Jan/Feb for years now.