Developing nursery plants

Well I just got back from the local conifer nursery (MountainMeadows.com) with a new plant to worry about. This one is a Norway spruce and I also have a Japanese hemlock from the same guy. He grows them in the ground for 8-10 years so they have some girth as well as a little character instead of the usual straight stick appearance. Both are in 3 gal plastic pots and full of roots so I feel I need to do something with them next spring.

The last tree I bought from him was a J. procumbens nana that also was in a 3 gal pot. To be safe I cut off about 1/3 the bottom of the root ball the first year. The next year I took off another 1/3. Finally last year I repotted it into a deep bonsai training pot and replaced half the soil with bonsai mix. Next spring I plant to replace the other half and reduce the roots a little more. So for this tree that means 4 years from nursery pot to bonsai pot. I also did some judicious pruning along the way.

So my question is was I overly cautious with this approach or spot on? Right now I am planning this stepwise approach with the hemlock and spruce and wonder if there is a way to speed development up a bit. What has you experience been with nursery conifers in pots 3 gal or larger?

It’s funny you mentioned them as I have been looking at their website and thinking of going there myself. I don’t have experience with pines but I would love to start. I’m also thinking of going the blue ridge bonsai club when I find the time to, I think it will be very beneficial. I think you found some good material though, although I can’t help with advice. Good luck though.

This Colorado Blue was repotted July 28th.. has since fell over off a 1ft high stump twice....it's still good! Sam Miller pot hit a path rock twice too! Still good! G!



Keys for me..
Waning moon.
Never let the surface dry.
Tied in well.
Tight in Small Pot.
Much Foliage to regrow roots.

Sorce

I'm really interested in this waning moon stuff. I've got a beech air layer that I'm pretty sure I see roots in the bag (it's up about 10' so difficult to assess without a ladder). I've come to the conclusion that the end of next week is 8 weeks before the first frost so time to separate. But this week is the waning cycle. So do I try it this week or wait until the last week of the month when it is waning again? Decisions decisions.

Cofga said:

The last tree I bought from him was a J. procumbens nana that also was in a 3 gal pot. To be safe I cut off about 1/3 the bottom of the root ball the first year. The next year I took off another 1/3. Finally last year I repotted it into a deep bonsai training pot and replaced half the soil with bonsai mix. Next spring I plant to replace the other half and reduce the roots a little more. So for this tree that means 4 years from nursery pot to bonsai pot. I also did some judicious pruning along the way.

Click to expand...

This to me is so strange as I take 3gal juniper and wire, prune and pot into a bonsai pot all at once. Never had a problem. Even did one July 4th last year as a bet/challenge and its right as rain. Florida I guess

choppychoppy said:

Florida I gues

Click to expand...

High humidity helps.
I know people here do this in late winter, just before spring breaks.

My experience is that most trees did not care at all of being repotted after purchase.
Provided there's a few things in consideration:
- no scorching sun for 2 weeks
- coarse media -》 enough to keep it aerated and not getting waterlogged in a tray of water (take a mental note: all of my cuttings succeeded that way)
- no nutrients until there's active growth again.
- a layer of moss should be applied, both to keep the medium in place as well as regulating humidity/evaporation.

This worked for: JBP, Mugo, ginkgo, beech, oak, juniper seedlings, scots pine, JRP. And I'm still testing older junipers.

However, there's never any harm in taking extra time. Better safe than sorry.

So the examples you guys have given would suggest I am being too conservative. However with these plants I am doing styling and pruning now and that would seem to dictate holding off on repotting them until they recover. At least that is what Harry Harrington suggests for Norway spruce on his Bonsai4me website. I found his styling/pruning page yesterday and found it quite helpful. For examlpe he says Norway spruce should only be pruned and styled from August until November. Other sites I read also suggest allowing as least one full growth cycle between styling/pruning and repotting. I suppose that if I were not doing any pruning and styling then it would be OK to go ahead and repot now, especially since the trees are probably in a late summer dormant state. That way they could take advantage of the coming fall to recover some of their root vigor and get ready for winter and spring.

choppychoppy said:

This to me is so strange as I take 3gal juniper and wire, prune and pot into a bonsai pot all at once. Never had a problem. Even did one July 4th last year as a bet/challenge and its right as rain. Florida I guess

Click to expand...

I've done it in Michigan and boasted of it.

Vance Wood said:

I've done it in Michigan and boasted of it.

Click to expand...

What about when you were new to bonsai?
I've killed them doing nothing but pruning <30% and wiring them.

So Vance and others who have repotted them right away—(1) how much root pruning did you also do, and (2) how much crown pruning and wiring did you do at the same time? The big question is you may get by with just repotting but what happens when you add insult to injury? This is a subject area that I have really seen little detail on but is critical for newbies. What little I have seen says do your above ground development first and once you are happy with the trunk girth, and limb size, and branch distribution, and overall style then put it in a bonsai pot.

There are two differen things. A bonsai pot if for trees that are 90% developed. Only the last refinement is done in a bonsaipot. And i some cases, that pot may be bigger than the pot used when showing the tree. I do not think anyone would advocate repotting from the ground into a bonsaipot.

The younger trees that you want to develop you need to avoid a stop of growth. So you take things slow, letting the tree recover from work before hurting again. That is one of the reasons for not doing all in one season, especially for more sensitive species. Patience leads to faster recovery and overall faster development.

Real young plants take substantially more abuse though. If a tree is very healthy and has been growing strong the year before, they take more abuse than a yamadori that just about stays alive. So plants straight from a nursery, only a few years from cutting take a lot of work because they have.loads of stored energy. The same tree after being in a shallow container for a few years will go belly up when you do the same work to it.

This year one mugo and five parsons juniper, all 3 gal nursery, have sawed root mass to half or third, and reduced foliage to half or third..minor form wiring on some of the parsons..

All put in colanders with a heavy de mix...so far so good..new growth present

So I guess, I’ve went by the principal of what you do upstairs should relatively mirror beneath the soil....balance

However, I too have wondered when this treatment is or may be a big mistake..

Solaris said:

What about when you were new to bonsai?
I've killed them doing nothing but pruning <30% and wiring them.

Click to expand...

You can kill juniper branches (and thus, presumably, the whole tree) by wiring at the wrong time of year. You can separate the cambium from the rest of the branch and that will be the end of that branch.

Cofga said:

So Vance and others who have repotted them right away—(1) how much root pruning did you also do, and (2) how much crown pruning and wiring did you do at the same time? The big question is you may get by with just repotting but what happens when you add insult to injury? This is a subject area that I have really seen little detail on but is critical for newbies. What little I have seen says do your above ground development first and once you are happy with the trunk girth, and limb size, and branch distribution, and overall style then put it in a bonsai pot.

Click to expand...

It depends on the specie of tree. I have done summer repots with all manner of Junipers, Mugo Pines, Scots Pines, Hinoki Cypress and a few others. I discovered early on that reduction of the top is instrumental to a successfull repot, at 30% top reduction.

Cofga said:

So Vance and others who have repotted them right away—(1) how much root pruning did you also do, and (2) how much crown pruning and wiring did you do at the same time? The big question is you may get by with just repotting but what happens when you add insult to injury? This is a subject area that I have really seen little detail on but is critical for newbies. What little I have seen says do your above ground development first and once you are happy with the trunk girth, and limb size, and branch distribution, and overall style then put it in a bonsai pot.

Click to expand...

I'm talking removing 50-70% of the foliage and the same on the rootball all at once and potting into a small bonsai pot. No problem.

choppychoppy said:

I'm talking removing 50-70% of the foliage and the same on the rootball all at once and potting into a small bonsai pot. No problem.

Click to expand...

Ditto..
Maybe it is something to do with where we are like you said.

It’s humid as hell here too...I walk outside or get out of the car and instantly can’t see out of my glasses for fog. You see it across the landscape right?...that dense wave of moisture...

The trees in our local nurseries are too subject to this humidity daily, before we found them I suppose.

This humidity is certainly not beneficial pathogen-wise regarding my deciduous trees though.

Interesting to hear these results. I think though that I will take the conservative path with this pair since the Japanese hemlock is hard to find in any decent size. As for the Norway Spruce I have already pruned and wired it so will wait until at least spring to pot it up. I dug down and found the beginning of the root flair but it was just below the surface and there are so many fine roots at the surface it was impossible to get much of a look at the nebari.

Here is a look at the first styling of the Norway spruce. Lots of good healthy buds to work with next spring. There also is a heavy branch on the back side of the left trunk that could end up as deadwood if I get adventuresome and the rest of the folkage fills in as I want it to. The nursery has several more of these so I might run back out there and pick out a single trunk one to work with too.

coh said:

You can kill juniper branches (and thus, presumably, the whole tree) by wiring at the wrong time of year. You can separate the cambium from the rest of the branch and that will be the end of that branch.

Click to expand...

That's what I figured happened with the wiring. When is the right time of year? I've nuked branches that I wired in late spring and mid/late summer. Should I wire them in the dormant seasons when the sap isn't flowing?

I was looking close at the Norway Spruce that I pruned and wired a month ago and was surprised to find new buds forming all over the place. These are tiny green buds which I guess will turn the same copper brown color as the others already on the tree. I guess too that the needle plucking and pruning that I did last month as well as the increased light reaching the branches resulted in this surge of new bud formation. I wasn’t expecting these new buds to form right now but assume this is a good sign for the health and vigor of the tree. Here are some photos: