Josh88
Shohin
A few months ago a friend and mentor passed away. He had sold off all of his trees as his health was failing, but when I went to help clean up his property I found this olive overturned under a bench. It was upside down, without any pot, and had a huge mass of extremely compacted soil, occupied by a ton of sedum. It only had a few leaves, so I put it into a pot the same size as it’s soil mass and began trying to save it. Once I had some decent growth and was seeing signs of life I repotted it this past weekend, as my research here has suggested ideal repotting during active growth. The soil mass was so broken down and compacted it was like dust the deeper I went. No water had been penetrating the soil anywhere near where roots should be. I found no signs of healthy roots even as I got as close to bare root as it would allow, but when I cut back stumps of larger roots there was living tissue there. I repotted it in 2:2:1 lava, pumice, akadama mix in a San Miller pot that I think suits it wonderfully. Now it’s time to see if I can get it healthy and vigorous and hopefully do some styling before too long. I feel like this will make a nice bonsai in time if it likes it’s new digs. This is the first olive I’ve worked with, so any thoughts or advice on design or horticulture are greatly appreciated.
