American Hornbeam pot suggestions

chansen

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I potted this hornbeam in the current pot last spring. Graduate school brought me back west, and Utah is much hotter and drier than Virginia. I think I'm going to need something deeper to keep the roots cooler in the summer. The trunk just above the soil line is about 4 inches in diameter.

I was thinking about this pot (2nd pic)... It's a Horst pot and I really like it. The current pot (tokoname) is 16 inches (40cm) long and about 2.5 inches (6.5 cm) deep. The Horst pot is about 14 inches long (36 cm), but about 3.5 inches (9cm) deep. The virtual isn't quite to scale due to the differences in length. I'm still fairly new to bonsai, so I wanted to get other opinions before I spent the $$. Is the color of the new pot ok? Is the texture too rough for the tree? I think that the color will highlight the lichen growing on the trunk without distracting from the image as a whole. Thoughts...?

Please excuse the dirty pot and the mulch, I pulled the pot out of winter storage to snap the pic. The tree will be cut back and wired this spring.

Thanks,

Christian
 

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rockm

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As it is now, both pots are vastly too small for this tree.

The big trunk requires a more substantial pot. Hornbeam generally work with a green/grey matte glaze. T

Additionally you might be working at odds with what the tree needs. It requires some more development work on the trunk and branching. Placing it in a shallow show pot will slow that development to a crawl.
 

Yamadori

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It requires some more development work on the trunk and branching. Placing it in a shallow show pot will slow that development to a crawl.

What Rock said. It needs a large growing pot or box for now.

The Horst pot is beautiful. You could purchase it and save it. Watch out though, buying pots can become an obsession:)
 

chansen

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Thank you both for your responses. I think I got a little 'pot happy' with this one; so thanks for the reality check. It'll be going back into a larger grow pot this spring.

Best,

Christian
 

rockm

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I understand the obsession with pots. My containers outnumber my trees 3 or 4 to 1. The urge to get a tree into a particular pot can be overwhelming at times.

Horst's containers are absolutely terrific and worth buying even if you don't have a tree that will fit a particular pot. You can also ask Horst to make a "one off" pot for a particular tree. Horst has made pots for several of my trees (back when the exchange rates were more favorable to the Dollar) and the results are pretty great.
 

Rick Moquin

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I understand the obsession with pots. My containers outnumber my trees 3 or 4 to 1. The urge to get a tree into a particular pot can be overwhelming at times.
... may I add. The other downfall to buying the pot before it's time is, that more often than not the pot is no longer suitable or as suitable as it might have been once upon a time once the tree has been developed/styled sufficiently to go into pot X.
 
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Rick my dear... are you suggesting there's something wrong with buying a ton of pots? lol Gawd I hope not...lol I'm never sad when the plan changes... it just means I have a cool pot on hand for something else some day. :D

"Hi... My name is Victrinia... and I am a pot addict." lol
 

rockm

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Unlike bonsai, bonsai pots don't die :D They are re-useable--unless you are extremely clumsy. Exceptional examples can be used as artwork in your home and require no horticultural talent to maintain--only a nice dust cloth. Some even become more valuable over the years (although this isn't the rule)...

Some of the pots in the National Arb are worth considerably more, and are vastly older than, the trees they contain.
 

rockm

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By the way Christian, Where did you get the tree? It's very nice and has tons of potential.
 

Rick Moquin

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Rick my dear... are you suggesting there's something wrong with buying a ton of pots? lol Gawd I hope not...lol I'm never sad when the plan changes... it just means I have a cool pot on hand for something else some day. :D

"Hi... My name is Victrinia... and I am a pot addict." lol

Unlike bonsai, bonsai pots don't die :D They are re-useable--unless you are extremely clumsy. Exceptional examples can be used as artwork in your home and require no horticultural talent to maintain--only a nice dust cloth. Some even become more valuable over the years (although this isn't the rule)...

Some of the pots in the National Arb are worth considerably more, and are vastly older than, the trees they contain.

I was just trying to be practical ;) I have a bunch of useless pots :D
 

chansen

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By the way Christian, Where did you get the tree? It's very nice and has tons of potential.

Thanks. I got it in Richmond, Virginia. I dug it in the spring of '08. In fact, this was a tree I dug after PMing you for local collection advice (if you remember). This is one of two hornbeams I dug at that time. There's still one that I left that I'm kicking myself for not digging. But it would have meant one more large tree to move across the country, and I barely made it with the trees I had :).

I need to carve down the stump at the top and let the new leader run wild this summer. I also need to get the back branch to put on some size. The new leader on the small trunk is moving the wrong direction, but that's where the bud popped. I'll have to work to compensate for that.
 

irene_b

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I was just trying to be practical ;) I have a bunch of useless pots :D
Rick, there is no such thing as a useless pot!!! Any you think are useless you can pack and ship to me or Vic.....
 

ghues

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Rick, there is no such thing as a useless pot!!! Any you think are useless you can pack and ship to me or Vic.....
Hey Rick,
I've got more trees than pots so.............I believe the shipping costs would be less if you sent them across the country....maybe we could trade ....birdseye yellow cedar or maple burl display slabs ?
Cheers G
 
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I was just trying to be practical ;) I have a bunch of useless pots :D


Ohhh! It could be said the same for me... except I try to get rid of anything I don't enjoy for it's own sake... tree or no tree. :D

I love just looking at them... but I have a lot of one-offs too... so they are all interesting to me. ;)
 

irene_b

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Rick post Pics of them!!!
 

irene_b

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I Like it!!! But I have tropicals that would go great in those colors...
 

Rick Moquin

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I Like it!!! But I have tropicals that would go great in those colors...

... as I did but not for long, unfortunately!

The point I was trying to convey was: pots are not easy to come by for me; I used to buy everything that was decent that I could use; many are of some use (training etc...) but not final pots; final pots are something that suits the tree like a glove both aesthetically and horticulturally; I recently had an opportunity to buy about 15 pots. I passed them all up as unsuitable (even for training).

I now try to find pots for a specific tree vice finding a specific tree for a given pot. I believe the latter is much more difficult a task to accomplish.
 
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