Damage Inc ROR - Elephant Stone + Spruce

[Damage Inc]

So this is my first project post after following the proverbial bonsai rabbit down the hole a little over a year ago so please be gentle with me...

Well, after a recent thread on using rocks typical from aquarium hardscaping (aqua-scaping) and then uncovering an "unique" root system on a small spruce I bought last year, I ended up with this elephant stone and spruce ROR arrangement. The spruce (at least I am pretty sure its a spruce) was bought at a bonsai club sale last year and sat on my bench until this weekend when I got some time to remove from its 4" nursey pot to see what was going on with the roots.

ROR immediately came to mind and I set out digging through my bins of hardscape material. I did have a few more interesting pieces of the elephant stone but none seemed to fit well with this little guy as well as this piece.


Then I set about trying to find the raffia I bought a few months ago, soaking it and making my best attempt to fit the spruce to the rock while wrapping and tying up the raffia. Thank goodness for work clamps...


I didn't take any further pics but it is now potted in a typical 1:1:1 APL mix plus some pine bark and coco coir up to and covering the top of the rock. Back onto the bench and finger crossed as to what I find next year. If it survives and the roots start to wrap the rock I will then change focus to styling tree but for now its really still just a stick in a pot with a rock chaser...

Any thoughts or comments?

 

[Frozentreehugger]

I like it first of all . My first go around with bonsai . This is my second I made several
Conifer ROR mostly with pine . Using rafia much as you have . Spruce are considered a more difficult species to work with . There is a golden rule of one insult per season , and your root work is a major amount of work for a spruce , my advice is leave it alone for at bare minimum 2 or 3 years , the rafia will rot eventually being a natural product . So no worry of cutting the roots , There is a balance you need to find , if you repot it more often you can arrange the roots around the rock better , but you stunt the growth of the tree . If you plant everything in a big pot . And let it grow without disturbing the roots . It will grow both more vigorous. But when you repot it will have roots in the wrong places . The experience I had was it’s better to lean towards leaving it longer . For a conifer this means 4 or even 4 years . For me 3 . Concentrate on getting the roots around the rock . At each repot . Do not concern yourself . With exposing the ror as painful as this sounds . This wil produce better results faster in the long run . At the next repot take photos of the root orientation . Around the rock . To reference when applying style technique to the above ground tree . ( it’s easy to forget with the rock buried ) .

 

[Damage Inc]

Thank you for the feed back and advice @Frozentreehugger
Providing I can keep it healthy, stunting the growth of the tree might not be a bad thing to keep the tree in scale with the rock as the rock isn't that big. Still I will do my best to heed your advice and be patient with it. Pic below of it potted waiting to go back outside and yes easy to forget there is a rock in there until I pick it up to move it.