Repotting advice

Dogwood87

Seedling
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Hi all,

I’ve recently learnt about the importance of good bonsai soil for drainage, aeration and avoiding soil compaction.

I wish I’d learnt this a few weeks ago as most of my container plants are sitting in the soil they came in or in a potful of multi-purpose compost. If it was early spring, I’d buy a bonsai mix and repot all my container plants, however given it’s the beginning of summer here in UK, I think it’s probably too late so might be better to wait til next spring.

move have a variety of plants in containers I.e junipers, blueberry, cunninghamia, maple, privet.

would you do something now or leave til next year?

Many thanks!!
 

Shibui

Imperial Masterpiece
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It depends...
Potting soil varieties are not quite as lethal as some internet experts would have us believe. I've seen people successfully grow bonsai in some pretty weird potting mixtures. The key is to manage your care, particularly watering, to the pots and the soil to avoid getting too dry or too soggy.
There is a risk to keeping trees in inadequate soils but there's also a risk to transplanting later in spring or summer. You need to weigh up the competing risks and decide what to do based on least risk.
If the soil is likely to kill the tree before next spring then you have nothing to lose by repotting.

Without seeing and feeling the soil and pots you've used I would probably leave the trees and manage water and care carefully through this season and repot at a better time.
 

bbk

Mame
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But a better time isn't necessarily spring next year? Maybe late summer, early autumn?

Obviously I'm saying this for the purpose of discussion. I, like Shibui am in Aussie, but unlike Shibui am new to Bonsai, so what the heck do I know... but I do know I haven't killed a plant by repotting yet. Yes, I have killed a plant due to repotting, and root pruning, and styling / hedge pruning a juniper all at once, but not repotting! :D
 

Srt8madness

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Trees and bushes grow fine in dirt, it's sort of their thing. Non bonsai plants of the same species grow fine in pots of dirt. Bonsai soil (in pre-bonsai/nursury stock) means you can water your heart out without killing the plant. With soil you've got to be more attentive. That's about it.
 

rockm

Spuds Moyogi
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Your problem is not really the soil, but experience in keeping trees in that soil. It is possible to grow trees in a bowl of glass marbles, but it's not easy nor is it practical.

Dirt is not optimal for bonsai, as it tends to stay too wet, not drain very well. Yes, trees grow in dirt naturally, BUT those trees are not in a container. A container changes the soil dynamic dramatically. There is no longer infinite drainage as trees have in ground. It's a microenvironment that isn't stable and changes.

Understanding how those changes affect the needs of the tree in the container is learning how to water. Uncooperative soil (and dirt is more uncooperative than standard bonsai soil--dirt stays too wet, but when it dries out, it becomes difficult to re-wet and may even repel water)

Your challenge is to learn how to keep the soil moist, but not soggy, and not to let it dry out. You have to find the optimal watering pave for your trees. That includes the changing weather conditions that spring, summer, fall and winter bring. That pace is more difficult with plain dirt that it is with a more porous, well-draining soil.
 
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