Nursery Soil

[Tadakun]

I work at a nursery in Vermont so I'm constantly finding things in our nursery stock (disregarded and left for dead plants mainly). most are in deep nursery pots with their original soil from the vendors. The "soil", if you can call it that has the consistency of meatloaf (for the lack of a better analogy). Is it ok for the tree to remain in said potting medium until next spring or should I get it into better stuff now? I'm very new to the world of bonsai so please forgive my seemingly naive questions.

 

[treebeard55]

... I'm very new to the world of bonsai so please forgive my seemingly naive questions.

No need to apologize! We were all newbies at one time or another, and I hope none of us ever forgets that!

It's hard to answer your question without seeing the trees and handling the soil, but for what it's worth and from what you describe ... I'd say it would depend on the condition of a given plant. Is it obviously thriving and healthy? Then I would probably wait until spring to repot. Is it languishing and declining? I'd probably do an emergency repot, removing no roots that weren't clearly dead, and then baby the heckoutuvit and hope for the best.

 

[Tadakun]

No need to apologize! We were all newbies at one time or another, and I hope none of us ever forgets that!

It's hard to answer your question without seeing the trees and handling the soil, but for what it's worth and from what you describe ... I'd say it would depend on the condition of a given plant. Is it obviously thriving and healthy? Then I would probably wait until spring to repot. Is it languishing and declining? I'd probably do an emergency repot, removing no roots that weren't clearly dead, and then baby the heckoutuvit and hope for the best.

thank you that's what i wanted to know. they are Weigela Florida "ghost" and a Spirea of a sort (which may just get planted into the flower bed as it's not a variety with smaller flowers.). I have a thuja Occidentallis that was left for dead as well as a chamaecyparis pisifera filifera "aura". The last two were repotted in nursery pots with standard potting mix soil because they were pulled out of the ground and left out. Next year they will get a little root treatment if they survive their past abuses.