MattB
Yamadori
I'm new to the forum, so wanted to say hello.
I recently became interested in bonsai, so I've been on several of the online forums for a few months now reading posts and looking at progressions of trees. Now that the nurseries in the area have plants out, I decided I would attempt to give the whole bonsai experience a try. After checking out a few different places I came across a Barberry that just caught my eye for some reason. Since it was good cheap material I figured it would be a good experiment.
I am located in southern Indiana, which I believe is right around zone 6...in general nowhere near as cold as central/northern Indiana and not as warm in the summers as Kentucky, but extremely humid. Barberry are grown in nearly every garden here, so I figured this would be a good hardy bush to play with.
When I got the bush home and pulled it out of its plastic pot, I was pretty surprised by the amount of roots in the pot. Not sure what to do, I carefully combed as much of the roots as possible to get the potting soil out (also found rubber bands, a screw, and half of a marble). I was too timid to cut any roots, so I got what soil I could and repotted into a 90% inorganic 10% spag moss mix. I'm using an oil absorbant from Auto Zone as the turface fill in since it only cost me about 3 dollars and works just fine on plants I've had in the past.
And now to figure out where to go from here. I've been told Barberry take pruning well in spring and early summer, but to avoid cutting any roots. I figured I would think of which branches to cut and remove a few now, then major pruning or chopping next spring along with my root pruning.
Any suggestions as to my next move? I'll post a few photos of the tree as well. The base of the trunk is just over 2 inches in diameter, with the first branch about an inch from the soil line.
I recently became interested in bonsai, so I've been on several of the online forums for a few months now reading posts and looking at progressions of trees. Now that the nurseries in the area have plants out, I decided I would attempt to give the whole bonsai experience a try. After checking out a few different places I came across a Barberry that just caught my eye for some reason. Since it was good cheap material I figured it would be a good experiment.
I am located in southern Indiana, which I believe is right around zone 6...in general nowhere near as cold as central/northern Indiana and not as warm in the summers as Kentucky, but extremely humid. Barberry are grown in nearly every garden here, so I figured this would be a good hardy bush to play with.
When I got the bush home and pulled it out of its plastic pot, I was pretty surprised by the amount of roots in the pot. Not sure what to do, I carefully combed as much of the roots as possible to get the potting soil out (also found rubber bands, a screw, and half of a marble). I was too timid to cut any roots, so I got what soil I could and repotted into a 90% inorganic 10% spag moss mix. I'm using an oil absorbant from Auto Zone as the turface fill in since it only cost me about 3 dollars and works just fine on plants I've had in the past.
And now to figure out where to go from here. I've been told Barberry take pruning well in spring and early summer, but to avoid cutting any roots. I figured I would think of which branches to cut and remove a few now, then major pruning or chopping next spring along with my root pruning.
Any suggestions as to my next move? I'll post a few photos of the tree as well. The base of the trunk is just over 2 inches in diameter, with the first branch about an inch from the soil line.