Opened buds and repotting

[Mikecheck123]

It takes a lot of water to unfurl leaves, and cause leaves to expand. Part of the expansion of leaves is rapid growing of the cells in the leaves, which means stored sugars are needed. If a tree was pulling in through the roots a hypothetical amount of water while dormant, I don't know actual numbers, but say during winter you are watering a tree every 2 or 3 weeks, because that is all the water it was using. Call that amount x then as spring comes, when the leaves start to open you suddenly may have to water the tree daily, water demand has risen to 14 x, or something like that. When you repot you damage the root systems ability to move water. If leaves have already begun unfurling, this can cause them to wilt, or even die back. This means you can even loose branches.

If you repot before the tree begins unfurling leaves, the tree will stall opening buds. It will only open the buds it has sufficient water to open. It is not unusual for trees repotted just before bud break or early in bud break, to not leaf out until a month after its neighbors that were not repotted. The tree will only open what it can support. But by repotting earlier, you don't loose branches

Perfect time to repot is when those brown buds have expanded just enough that you begin to see a green pattern of fine green lines outlining the bud scales. This is when the buds are just expanding but have not opened at all.
Make sense?

Amur maples are rugged trees. It will probably survive, you might not loose much, no matter when you repot. But some of the Japanese maples are really touchy, and repotting late can kill Japanese maples and other tender deciduous trees.

Makes sense, thanks! And fills in part of a mystery from last season.

I had a gorgeous little wisteria 4 inches high with a shoot climbing a tiny little pole. I repotted it late (after it had fully leafed out) because it was last on my priority list, but also because, hey, it's a wisteria and they're indestructible!

Not so. It hung on to life for a month or so, but ear wigs finished it off, eating any feeble shoots it could muster.

 

[Mikecheck123]

My tiny pole climber before I killed it! The leaves at the top of the runner were impossibly tiny.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

It takes a lot of water to unfurl leaves, and cause leaves to expand. Part of the expansion of leaves is rapid growing of the cells in the leaves, which means stored sugars are needed. If a tree was pulling in through the roots a hypothetical amount of water while dormant, I don't know actual numbers, but say during winter you are watering a tree every 2 or 3 weeks, because that is all the water it was using. Call that amount x then as spring comes, when the leaves start to open you suddenly may have to water the tree daily, water demand has risen to 14 x, or something like that. When you repot you damage the root systems ability to move water. If leaves have already begun unfurling, this can cause them to wilt, or even die back. This means you can even loose branches.

If you repot before the tree begins unfurling leaves, the tree will stall opening buds. It will only open the buds it has sufficient water to open. It is not unusual for trees repotted just before bud break or early in bud break, to not leaf out until a month after its neighbors that were not repotted. The tree will only open what it can support. But by repotting earlier, you don't loose branches

Perfect time to repot is when those brown buds have expanded just enough that you begin to see a green pattern of fine green lines outlining the bud scales. This is when the buds are just expanding but have not opened at all.
Make sense?

Amur maples are rugged trees. It will probably survive, you might not loose much, no matter when you repot. But some of the Japanese maples are really touchy, and repotting late can kill Japanese maples and other tender deciduous trees.

Happened to me a couple years ago. Did an A. palmatum forest workshop but it had been so warm the buds on the plants they supplied had already opened and started pushing leaves. We also cut back the roots a lot to get them closer together. Afterwards I lost 2 of the 5 trees in the clump. Taught me a quick lesson about messing with Jap. maples once they had begun to wake up.

 

[sorce]

Only because of the practial reasons a have stated above....
I live on the 9th floor and it can get really windy. Also i am a bit limited with possible workarounds to try to prevent my tree to turn over and break.

Balls! We're gonna have to get an altitude check, so far, your lower than @petegreg by 2 floors!

Sorce

 

[Krone]

Should i protect/keep protecting the young foliage of this tree that was re-potted a couple of weeks ago?
Temperatures are above freezing, but there is constant wind blowing?

 

[Forsoothe!]

On the other hand, I only repot after leaves have expanded and are mature. I have "bad luck" at other times. The tree needs resources to live on while it is recovering from root and/or canopy surgery. If you add the burden of expanding leaves while the tree is recovering, that just adds a multiplier to any negative conditions that might contribute to failure like weather that is suddenly too hot, cold, wet, dry, etc. IMHO. Can it be done at any other time? Yes, of course, but the differences in weather alone is so different between Oregon's west slope, lowland coastal and elevations it's not funny. And that's just one lousy state! When you start considering how many different micro climates limiting or maximizing sun, wind and temperature that exist within the major areas, it gets crazy. Leo and I live within 300 miles of each other in the Great Lakes basin and very close to the same latitude, yet we have different advice. And, I'm not saying I'm right and he's wrong. We both have ~50 odd years of growing things experience, too. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Look at this map of "Mediterranean" climate with no less than 28 zones. And that just covers the coasts for the most part. To a mid-western Yank, it boggles the mind.

The advice is freely given in the best of faith, but needs to be adjusted to local conditions all the way down to the backyard. No matter where a body is in the world, it is both like and unlike elsewhere.

 

[sorce]

Should i protect/keep protecting the young foliage of this tree that was re-potted a couple of weeks ago?
Temperatures are above freezing, but there is constant wind blowing?

Has the foliage been growing steadily the last couple weeks?
I would imagine not.

If it's not wilting you're ok.

But as the waning moon ends, your root growth will taper and your top growth will begin, this may cause a situation where the roots can't keep up.

After the next waning moon, you should be out of the woods, if it hasn't wilted.

Sorce

 

[Krone]

I think that it is growing steadily.
Outside from protection jur for the picture.

 

[sorce]

I think that it is growing steadily.
Outside from protection jur for the picture.

View attachment 285889

Thanks for a picture!

You might be able to get a scientific truth from our scholarly folk....

But I don't think leaves like that are transpiring at their full potential, if at all, so you may still see wilting later, which would be a sign to remove it from the wind.

Sorce

 

[walee]

Sorry to jump onto an ended thread, I just purchased a maple today and am wondering if it’s past the ‘recommended’ stage of repotting.

The buds are clearly opened, but I’m not sure if this counts as leafing.

 

[Mikecheck123]

Sorry to jump onto an ended thread, I just purchased a maple today and am wondering if it’s past the ‘recommended’ stage of repotting.

The buds are clearly opened, but I’m not sure if this counts as leafing.

View attachment 423528

Probably fine now.

The thing you want to avoid is big water needs when the roots have been disturbed. If you wait a week, the water needs will only keep increasing.

It also depends on what you plan on doing. A full bare root repot and prune is the most extreme. I wouldn't go that far.

 

[walee]

Probably fine now.

The thing you want to avoid is big water needs when the roots have been disturbed. If you wait a week, the water needs will only keep increasing.

It also depends on what you plan on doing. A full bare root repot and prune is the most extreme. I wouldn't go that far.

Thank you for your input! I plan to do zero root pruning, I just want to repot it into a pond basket with a tile underneath to help spread the root system. It's currently in a 2gal fabric pot. The trunk is actually pretty loose which leads me to believe it may have been recently repotted; I'm wondering if I should leave it to reduce the stress. Or conversely, I might be able to sneak a repot in with minimal stress since it's already loose.

 

[Shibui]

Thank you for your input! I plan to do zero root pruning, I just want to repot it into a pond basket with a tile underneath to help spread the root system. It's currently in a 2gal fabric pot. The trunk is actually pretty loose which leads me to believe it may have been recently repotted; I'm wondering if I should leave it to reduce the stress. Or conversely, I might be able to sneak a repot in with minimal stress since it's already loose.

That tree is still fine to repot even if you want to do root pruning. The leaves are not open enough to put demands on reduced roots and at that stage roots will regrow almost immediately.
If it's loose in the soil I'd want to check and find out why. Careful unpot rarely does any harm. Most maples have enough reserves to grow new roots again if you do have new roots that break off but I'd proceed carefully to minimize damage in case it has recently been root pruned and has brittle new roots growing.

 

[walee]

That tree is still fine to repot even if you want to do root pruning. The leaves are not open enough to put demands on reduced roots and at that stage roots will regrow almost immediately.
If it's loose in the soil I'd want to check and find out why. Careful unpot rarely does any harm. Most maples have enough reserves to grow new roots again if you do have new roots that break off but I'd proceed carefully to minimize damage in case it has recently been root pruned and has brittle new roots growing.

Awesome, thank you for the knowledge. I'll proceed with caution for sure. I too was wondering why the trunk was so loose, will be good to investigate.

 

[dbonsaiw]

The advice is freely given in the best of faith, but needs to be adjusted to local conditions all the way down to the backyard. No matter where a body is in the world, it is both like and unlike elsewhere.

This really gets to the heart of the differences of opinion on basically every aspect of bonsai among the experienced. To add my 2 cents, a half hour drive from my house in each direction will provide a different micro-climate. Case in point, the trees in Manhattan (all 6 of them) bloom considerably earlier than just a few miles away. Even the heat emanating from the buildings is mucking with the temps.

 

[walee]

Thanks everyone for your input. I CAUTIOUSLY repotted the maple into a pond basket with SUCCESS so far!

I delicately raked everything out to about a 90% bare root, clipped off about 10% root mass (end of the tap root, and this one medium sized root wrapping over itself), left everything else, even the longer roots, which i tried to set out in an even radial pattern while backfilling the tree into the pond basket. I also set the tree on a 4"x4" porcelain tile from home depot to get the roots to develop in a more fanned out manner.

I've since kept the tree in my garage where it gets filtered light in the morning from a window and with daily misting of the leaves (about once a day). So far, it's holding up well after approximately 9 days! I live in LA Valley and the dry Santa Ana winds would almost certainly have dried it to a crisp otherwise.

I hope my experience will spread a bit of wisdom to the community and empower other Bonsai amateurs like myself to not be scared to take a few calculated risks when presented with a less than ideal situation.