Repotting season is on! I’m trying to follow some recent guidance and advice to go smaller in pot size and bolder in pot color.
European White Birch in robin’s egg blue Chuck Iker round pot. True to form I misaligned the tree in the pot — this is the front of the tree but just barely is not the front of the pot. This tree’s bark is silvering nicely, which isn’t very visible here with the tree wetted.
This tree can sustainably remain within the shohin height limit.
Native Bigleaf Maple in blue-green-brown textured Vicki Chamberlain pot. It’s a great size and shape, given there’s a decent chunky root mass under the soil. The pot colors seem more vibrant in person. This tree had some poor diatomaceous earth soil and some bulky fused roots, so I performed pretty heavy root work. I’ve been gradually re-doing the canopy and removing out of proportion branches. I had some unfortunate branch loss last year and I think the poor soil conditions were reflected in the canopy. This tree went a year or two too long without a repot.
I was tempted to put this tree back into a training pot to rebuild secondary canopy scaffolding but I’m going to see how it does with a more restrictive habit.
Hokkaido Chinese Elm in an emerald green pot by BSOP member Lyle. I improved the potting angle and position to prevent the taller trunk from being too straight and upright. The angle change also makes this a directional tree, which I need to round out my shohin collection. This was a decent root reduction but only through peeling away successive years of fine root growths.
This tree can definitely sustainably remain within the shohin limits. The repot may very well trigger a lot of new growths.
Repots continue this weekend…