Thank you for your reply! I'm in Toronto. I dug it up last year around this time and the soil is just regular potting soil, but I'm hoping to take it out, trim the roots, and move it into a proper pot with bonsai mix tomorrow.
Can you tell if the buds are swelling??
Doing the repotting before the tree starts getting it's juices flowing is more dangerous.
It's best to watch closely and see when the buds it created last year start to swell.
This is referred to as "buds moving" or "starting to move" or grow...
Once the buds are swelling, you can probably go ahead and Repot, but I will warn you, if it's only been dig up for one year, you may not want to cut many roots...
In my experience, conifers take longer to recover from initial digging, or Repotting...
As for the soil, for potted trees, you want a free draining mix, that stays moist, but not wet....
Potting soil, in general, will stay too wet, and not have the necessary air pockets between soil particles to give your tree a healthy balance of air and water.
Most people use a mix of mostly inorganic substrate, and minimal organic....or fully inorganic.
I use fully inorganic, Pumice and Lava (and sometime Haydite).
Though I do put Sphagnum moss on the top to retain moisture, while I'm at work all day..
Some small particles of Sphagnum make their way into the substrate....
But the point is, the lava and pumice hold a fair amount of moisture, but water just rolls straight through, and out the drainage holes.
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