Best cascade potting method

noissee

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Obviously, a bonsai needs to be firm in its pot. I was wondering today about how this is achieved in a cascade pot, especially with younger material. I have an airlayer that will become a cascade, and obviously there will not be enough roots to fill the pot.
Do any of you have a favorite technique to secure a tree in a cascade pot?
Thanks.
Nick
 

irene_b

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Obviously, a bonsai needs to be firm in its pot. I was wondering today about how this is achieved in a cascade pot, especially with younger material. I have an airlayer that will become a cascade, and obviously there will not be enough roots to fill the pot.
Do any of you have a favorite technique to secure a tree in a cascade pot?
Thanks.
Nick
I use screen cut out around the base of the tree and wired out over the pot (tied off under the pot) and lay the pot on it's side and let the foliage grow toward the sun as it wants. The screen also holds the ferts in place as well....Turn pot up for watering, then lay back over.
Irene
 
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Start with potting it correctly, which is different than potting a regular style bonsai.


I pot mine with the help of another person and leave the roots longer than I would with a regular style.


I fill the pot up about a third or half way and then I suspend the roots down into the pot, holding the tree at the final potting level and letting the roots dangle down into the pot. My helper then slowly fills the pot with soil, using a long chopstick to assure the soil goes around and into the roots while I hold the tree suspended. This is done until the tree is potted, giving me roots down into the soil instead of just at the top.

I then wire the trunk and bring the wire down under and back up the pot. This holds it securely and allows for easy removal after the tree has set.




I hope this helped.



Will
 

noissee

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thanks that does help.
When you say you bring the wire down under the pot then back over, you mean over the outside edge right? not through the soil. Then just take it off when it's established..
 
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Thanks right, I use plastic tubing over the wire to protect the pot edges.



WIll
 

PaulH

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I prefer to attach 4 tie wires to a heavier wire anchor outside the drain hole and run the ties up inside the pot. I then add soil much as Will described and then tie the tree in with a basket tie at the top. This method is the most secure and the ties are not visible.
 

JasonG

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Yeah, many make this uglier and harder than it needs to be. You can also wedge a slice of bamboo or chopstick into the roots to tie onto if you can't tie it in tight enough. But no need to have wire on the outside of the pot or lay it on its side unless you have made a cascade out a tree that wasn't ment to be so you need to point the buds upward. But in that case I would wire the branches into the right position.

Just my thoughts :)
 
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me,, I like to stabilize the pot,, since in the next few years you will be re-potting the tree anyway, I (thats me) will put heavy gavel in the bottom of the pot to stabilize it, and also run wires up through the pot to anchor the tree to it, kinda like anchoring the tree to a weight ( but its the pot) until the roots have hed time to grow into the pot. Just a thought.
 

ghues

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Like most things....there isn't one technique that works for all situations.....so most of us come up with additional little modifications to a general method.
Unfortunately when it comes time for re-potting you don't always have a friend around to help so you have to improvise….hold it in one hand and fill with the other or temporarily hold the tree in place with wire until its filled up and firm enough to remove the wires.
I use Will’s filling the pot method with only one person…..and with two cases this spring, the hemlock below didn’t need any wire to stabilize it firmly in place but I had to add a rock as it was a little top heavy….with the Larch I’ve put the roots over a long shaped rock to spread out the air layered roots and will raise the rock with each re-potting to have a root over rock cascade in a few years.

Cheers Everyone.
 

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Vance Wood

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If you think about it the real problem is not so much the stability of the tree and pot together as it is whether or not the tree, once planted in a particular position, will not change due to gravity, or up-root itself as it settles in. If the tree and pot are not stable odds are your tree is too large for the pot. So--the important thing is keeping the tree in the position that it was planted in.

As was pointed out earlier a wedge of bamboo or wood can be used but that's only half way there. Assuming that you have a soil mass and are not planting your tree bare root, the most effective way to anchor the tree is by driving two pieces of a chop stick or similar sized dowel through the soil ball. Anchor some wire around the ends of the sticks. Extend the other ends of the wire through the drainage holes and tie them off to a third dowel across the drainage holes and tighten the wires until the tree no longer moves. This is the Yoshimura method.
 

fore

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Like most things....there isn't one technique that works for all situations.....so most of us come up with additional little modifications to a general method.
Unfortunately when it comes time for re-potting you don't always have a friend around to help so you have to improvise….hold it in one hand and fill with the other or temporarily hold the tree in place with wire until its filled up and firm enough to remove the wires.
I use Will’s filling the pot method with only one person…..and with two cases this spring, the hemlock below didn’t need any wire to stabilize it firmly in place but I had to add a rock as it was a little top heavy….with the Larch I’ve put the roots over a long shaped rock to spread out the air layered roots and will raise the rock with each re-potting to have a root over rock cascade in a few years.

Cheers Everyone.

Awesome trees ghues! Just beautiful cascades. I have a Canadian Hemlock and the leaves are long and strangely, just wondering, is that a different variant of Hemlock? Or did you just over time, pinch and pinch to achieve the great leaf structure I see?
Oh, and the pots are something else too!
 

Potawatomi13

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I use screen cut out around the base of the tree and wired out over the pot (tied off under the pot) and lay the pot on it's side and let the foliage grow toward the sun as it wants. The screen also holds the ferts in place as well....Turn pot up for watering, then lay back over.
Irene
There is a problem with this technique. While the tree is growing UP toward the sun the roots are growing the opposite direction toward DOWN or where gravity is. When the tree is eventually placed in its determined orientation the roots will be going sideways in the pot away from the cascade. Today many professional growers are orienting the pot or box at the angle they will eventually be planting the tree at so the roots will be properly gravity oriented when eventually put in a proper pot.
 

pbethune

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I wrap the wire inside an aquarium air plastic tube and tighten it like a noose. But, I like the above with wrapping the whole root ball...
 
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