Shohin by tragedy

[Micci]

Im a big shohin fan,infact thats all i collect but this time i found a beautiful youpan holly female with some nice nebari that had a beautiful spiral apex. Usually i would take it to the first branch but i left this girl alone.

Since it was raining that morning i had my trees under my grow light 4ft 6bulb t5 setup. When i got home the sun was out so i decided to move my trees to the sun.

I left the holly under my growlight and right when i was walking towards it, the light breaks from the mounting bracket and lands right on top and snaps the tree in half!!!! My heart dropped, i felt so bad for her bc she was beautiful, i wish i had a before pic.

Well it ended up working out bc now ill have a bitchin shohin, i working out on growing a new apex

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I like it. I like the nebari too. In time this will be a very nice tree.

If it were mine, I would bury the nebari, at least 1/2 inch deep, but less than 1 inch deep (1.25 cm or more, but less than 2.5 cm deep). The reason is while in a training pot, you are trying to develop and thicken th surface roots. Leaving them exposed will risk the thinner surface roots dying, and slow the development of the thicker surface roots. The tree will favor the roots from lower in the root mass, Only expose the nebari when you move it to its ''exhibition pot'', when it is close to or pretty much show ready. While the tree is young, keep the nebari buried. Exposing the surface roots is only done when a tree is in last stages of refinement, past the basic development and growing out phase, past initial styling phase. Until then keep the surface roots covered.

If the tree is allowed to ''ride high'' with a lot of exposed roots, you will never be able to get the tree into a shallow pot. It will always be sitting on a mound of roots, in which the fine ones will be dead, and the thick ones will be like stilts.

I know many, many people on this site seem to leave what I would consider way to much of the surface roots exposed, but if you look at trees the most experienced on this site show, (Like Adair, Smoke, and many others) the experienced members keep their roots covered, until the tree has moved into the final refinement phases. Keep in mind, when we repot, we look at the nebari, and correct developing problems, with final display in mind. Then when we are done trimming out crossed roots, problem roots and other issues, we plant the tree deep enough to cover the nebari again. The nebari is important, and to develop the best nebari for most trees you need to keep it covered by media until the tree is in last phases of refinement.

Just offering this comment as help, you have a nice tree there, nice enough that I would enjoy to have it on my bench, training for the future.

 

[sorce]

Sweetccident!

Sorce

 

[Micci]

Heres a recent pic! Its doing well and now starting to flower

 

[Cadillactaste]

Lovely in bloom for sure! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Micci]

Absoblutely! I want to pot it real bad, what do you guys all think?

 

[Cadillactaste]

I don't know the species well...if treated like azalea...then after bloom would be appropriate. I don't know your location either...I know if treated like a tropical...I live in a colder climate and tropical I don't repot until Summer. When night temps are no longer dropping significantly.

So you will likely need to wait in on one familiar to your species.

 

[Micci]

Thank you so much

 

[Cadillactaste]

Wish I had better direction... @Vin don't you have this species?

@Micci those are some cool nabari on your tree. Filling out your profile really goes to helping ones offer proper advice to when one does things with their trees.

 

[GrimLore]

Absoblutely! I want to pot it real bad, what do you guys all think?

Late Spring to Early Summer for Ilex is the general rule, again no idea where you are located, might want to add that to your profile so it shows in your Avatar.

Normally they like less root trimming, a 1/4 reduction at most. I would not repot though. Let it go another growing season and as @Leo in N E Illinois stated cover some of the surface roots a bit as it recovers and fills in. When you do finally repot take off a little more of the bottom root though, perhaps a 3rd. Reason being there is root there for twice what it left...

@Cadillactaste I thought you had Ilex... must be my age, argh

Grimmy

 

[Cadillactaste]

@GrimLore ... Nope...never even killed in in my day. Had one suggest it if I looked into Sumo I believe. That might be where you got the impression I had one.

 

[JosephCooper]

There are no mistakes, just happy little accidents.

 

[Cadillactaste]

There are no mistakes, just happy little accidents.

Adds to their story...

 

[AaronThomas]

Looks great! Love the nebari...

 

[Micci]

ThNks guys im located in los angeles ca. How can i add that to my profile?

 

[Cadillactaste]

ThNks guys im located in los angeles ca. How can i add that to my profile?

Clicking on your avatar photo...will take you to your info...you can just easily fill it out there. ?

 

[JoeH]

Nice looking tree. Its basically early summer here and I've done my repots on my ilex for the season. I do them when they are budding for the spring in Feb/March.