New Willow Leaf, New Pot

evmibo

Shohin
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The story:
I broke down on ebay and bought the pot, I really like shallow rectangles, plus the color and unique dimensions had me intrigued.
I bought this Willow Leaf from Wigerts (along with 3 others roughly the same size) last week. When I saw the base of this guy I knew I could probably make it work in the new pot, as a clump style.

The picture:
I put soaked sphagnum on top of the soil above the current root ball (reduced it significantly from original size). It's now in a spot where it received AM sun and then shade for the remainder of the day.
Will wire some later in summer if it looks strong.
Questions, concerns, critiques, cautions always welcome.

April 10th 2015 before.JPG April 10th 2015 before closeup1.JPG April 10th 2015 before closeup2.JPG April 10th 2015 before closeup3.JPG Pot.png
 
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evmibo

Shohin
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I like the first photo as the front.
Sphagnum will be replaced with a small amount of moss when roots develop some.

April 10th 2015 front.JPG April 10th 2015 zback.JPG April 10th 2015 left.JPG April 10th 2015 right.JPG April 10th 2015 front sphagnum.JPG
 

GrimLore

Bonsai Nut alumnus... we miss you
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My Wife is the one that deals with Tropicals here but I water, feed, and often help out with them when they are outside for the Summer along with my plants. I like it but I must caution you on the moss at the base of the plant - just use substrate or the sphagnum to get the roots going. They have soft bark and exposed roots are the same. If you grow moss on either the trunk or the surface roots it will be nearly impossible to get off and cause more damage then good. We only use it for very short times as a "deco".

Grimmy
 

erb.75

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I think it looks great...are you worried at all about the soil washing away from your mound?
 

evmibo

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Grimmy,
Thanks for the heads up.

erb.75,
Thanks, I'm a little worried, but it is very tightly packed. Will keep an eye on it and top it, and top it off if needed.
 
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Im really new to this. Out of curiousity what did you use to give it the haircut? (the large "stump")
 

evmibo

Shohin
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May have been the knob cutter actually. Fwiw, I would have liked to use a small handsaw with fine teeth (something like this), but need a new one. Hope that helps you. There are many ways to skin a cat ;)
 

evmibo

Shohin
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It's been a litte over a year. Unfortunately I lost the smaller trunk on the right last summer. Not really sure why, maybe it was the sphagnum that I was cautioned about? I repotted it a month-ish ago, during the repot I wired heavily, and these pics are after taking that wire off, and cleaning up a good bit of unwanted backbuds.

The first image is the original angle, but I'm liking images 2, 3, and 4 as a new front for next year - maybe. I don't really want the tree to get much taller at all, but needs to get wider. More wire will be going on in a month or so when I pump it up with more fert.

IMG_2097.JPG IMG_2098.JPG IMG_2099.JPG IMG_2100.JPG
 

sorce

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Nice.

I would wire the new shoots sooner...
So you have movement to cut back to when it comes time to build taper in the branches.

Sorce
 

eferguson1974

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Cool, coming right along. But I think you could do a forest with that pot, the tree is too small IMO. It could have a couple that size I think.
 
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