crab apple
Shohin
I have a great opportunity to wild collect several species for bonsai, I have my eye on quite a few variety's but right now I looking at live oaks, laurel oaks and a type of short needle sand pine that is everywhere around here.
I have done quite a bit of research and am still a little confused on a couple things, one is that there is a lot of mention on saving as much of the root ball as possible especially on the pines but still potting them in a large container with a well draining soil, in my case it would probable be mostly Turface, perlite, some pumice and a little pine bark is what I have locally available. Actually have to order the pumice, anyways do you not clean off the root ball? I see some ppl washing it of to bare root and others I assume put the rootball in with the native soil in with the bonsai type soil all around it, not sure which way to go there.
Also for the oaks it has been recommended to use pumice half and half with potting soil, is this a thing? mix potting soil with hard aggregates used in bonsai-seems like the potting soil would just clog everything up.
I didn't realize how poor draining the potting soil was until I got into Bonsai. I'm surprised that stuff doesn't kill everything it gets near.
I have done quite a bit of research and am still a little confused on a couple things, one is that there is a lot of mention on saving as much of the root ball as possible especially on the pines but still potting them in a large container with a well draining soil, in my case it would probable be mostly Turface, perlite, some pumice and a little pine bark is what I have locally available. Actually have to order the pumice, anyways do you not clean off the root ball? I see some ppl washing it of to bare root and others I assume put the rootball in with the native soil in with the bonsai type soil all around it, not sure which way to go there.
Also for the oaks it has been recommended to use pumice half and half with potting soil, is this a thing? mix potting soil with hard aggregates used in bonsai-seems like the potting soil would just clog everything up.
I didn't realize how poor draining the potting soil was until I got into Bonsai. I'm surprised that stuff doesn't kill everything it gets near.