Silver Birch Forest progression

[Mikea454]

Betula Pendula (silver birch) Forest

Thought I would document this progression in case any newbies wanted to learn from all my mistakes.

I ordered these seedlings on burchbonsai.com - they did have a cool deal selling clusters of Birch seedlings at a nice discount specifically for forest making. They were unfortunately out of season, but the owner contacted me and was very helpful getting me some slightly older seedlings but with a cluster discount. They arrived today undamaged, as unpotted plugs, but a little shocked as expected. I didn't want to stress them further so I potted them in some tall anderson pots I had ordered in advance expecting the plugs. (Amazon https://a.co/d/17U7tFX) The pots are cheap, very flexible plastic (like a triple thick contractor garbage bag) but allowed me to put the plugs in without disturbing the roots and just fill dirt around the stressed seedlings. I'll plan to repot them early this Spring (or next) when the buds first appear.

 

[Mikea454]

some of them have some interesting trunks already and some are over 1/4" thick.

 

[Mikea454]

Leafing out nice, really thick and back budding all over the trunks. Do I move them to the forest tray early this spring or wait another year for the trunks to thicken.... tough decisions - would save a lot of space., but will thicken much quicker in the Andersons

 

[Mikea454]

coming out of winter storage

 

[Mikea454]

starting to leaf out. trunks are thickening up and have some nice movement. hoping they thicken up some more and start turning white this summer and maybe next spring they can all be moved to a large shallow pot together.

 

[Mikea454]

fully leaked in, home this year the trunks thicken the rest of the way and start to transition to white then moved to their forest planting (9 total) and the end of winter, maybe February of 26

 

[Mikea454]

the full set enjoying spring

 

[Mikea454]

Decided on the arrangement of the birch and started trimming back internal branches. Im really happy with how fast they have grown in the Anderson pots and recovered from winter storage. I repotted tree number one in a wider pod and on a wood disc, hoping to spread the roots a little more since it will be the front of the display. The roots were really thick and a couple of them not flexible. It's going to take a pretty severe trimming if I'm going to go straight to the large tray I've selected if I don't have some intermediate step of moving to a shallower pot.

Anyone done something similar with birch or similar that has some tips?

 

[BobbyLane]

Good stuff, I have a B Pendula in development. Not done a Birch forest. My only tip would be to keep as much of the branches as possible. Being that youre developing a forest, its inevitable that some branches will begin to get shaded out and dieback. Keep rotatating the composition so every tree gets light.

some tips here:

 

[Mikea454]

Luckily I did know that about Birch. It's part of the reason I wanted to do a forest, less importance placed on any one single branch. I just love the white bark so much I wanted to have them in my collection. They are still in their individual anderson pots, but I now have them arranged as they're going to be placed in the composition, just not as tightly compacted yet. i figured this way.Natural selection can let internal branches die back as they would in a normal forest. I did repot 1 of them this spring, the biggest tree, into a bigger pot so it could be more distinctly the largest. i also wanted to get a look at the roots for planning. even after coming out and doing some light trimming.They was probably twice as much root mass as would fit in their future pots.

MY BIG QUESTION IS: when I repot in early spring, can I trim three quarters of the root mass in one go, so they fit in the final forest tray? do I need to trim the leaf mass to balance the reduced roots?
-or-
should I step down next spring to shallow bonsai training pots and the following spring the tray?

 

[Mikea454]

Hopefully at the end of winter all nine of these will go in this tray together. can't wait to see the final product once these trunks go white