SexyGArdener
Sapling
I recently acquired this BC in a 5Gal container. The nebari seemed interesting so I had to pull the trigger. It's 10' tall with a diameter at base at about 2.5-3". It's currently sitting in shallow water because it hasn't been watered in a few days and the trunk didn't yield any green when scratched, but the branches were green under the bark. I'm just hoping it's going dormant and not dying. My plan for this coming Spring is to uncover some soil on the bottom left corner in picture 3 and cut the tap root or any roots underneath the current base and refill with nursery soil or heavy organic soil to grow in out for another year. The following spring, I would further reduce the surface roots closer to the base to get better ramification, because as you can see some roots are thick and circling the pot as is. I might consider doing some drastic roots reduction this coming spring if during the partial repotting I find decent amount of feeder roots to support recovery. I'm skeptical whether it would survive a 90-95% roots reduction, so I'm aiming for 60-70% for the first reduction with a follow-up in the following spring with further roots refinement work. Hopefully in 2024, I can perform a trunk chop to perhaps 10-12" high to start building taper. I like to conical style for the 1st decade of its development and transition to the flat top as knees develop.