BC repot and a new larch forest in the making

[WNC Bonsai]

So after visiting my hydroponics store and replenishing my pumice and haydite supply I spent the afternoon potting. First up was a batch of Japanese larch that just arrived from a nursery in Oregon. Found these on eBay for $4 each and free shipping! Nice compact little seedlings a year or so old that had been grown in plug containers. I lopped off the bottom inch so they ended up with about 2” of roots left. All went into 4” pots with a mix of pumice, haydite, sand, and peat. There are 10 of them, and by next summer I will put them all into a tray so their roots will mesh. After that they will end up on a rock I have been preparing for them. These have only barely started to pop buds. I also have 10 American larch that I got last year destined for another forest. As you can see these are in full flush mode. Here are some shots of the larches.

Japanese larch


American larch

 

[WNC Bonsai]

After getting all the larch in a tray of water to soak, I moved on to my BC. I have a 7 of these of various sizes for another forest. Three of them came from Lowes last summer in nursery pots. I lopped them back to about 30-36” tall and let them recover. I also have 4 2 year old BC that will go in the forest too if there is room.

I picked up a 20” diameter plastic pot at the hydroponics store that looked like a good training pot for the forest. First I grabbed the biggest BC and cut it out of the nursery pot. As expected it was a mass of roots in there. I took a pruning saw to it and cut the lower half of the root ball off. I raked out the roots and found a tap root that went all the way to the bottom of the pot along with several large woody side roots. Since I had removed so many roots at this point I decided to put it back into another pot to let it recover so I can cut more off the bottom next spring. The rest of the BC will get their roots chopped over the next couple days. I expect them to be every bit as potbound as the big BC. Here are some photos

The chop job

 

[WNC Bonsai]

Here is a lineup of the rest of the BC to go in with the big BC.

The Lowes lineup


And the smaller saplings