Winter repotting

Ollie

Yamadori
Messages
70
Reaction score
58
Location
South-West England
I'm away from home most of the year for university and will unfortunately miss the next 2 years' repotting seasons.

Planning ahead to work around this: will my trees handle a repot in late December (Xmas holiday)? I'll be able to provide frost/wind protection afterwards. Here in south-west UK winters are mild-ish, rarely dropping below -10°C.

Will this work better for some species than others? Should I do anything differently (e.g. root pruning/bare rooting) at this time of year? Or should I make do with slip-potting?

If there's already a thread on this please send a link! Any help appreciated.
 

zanduh

Mame
Messages
200
Reaction score
357
Location
Connecticut
USDA Zone
6b
I don't know your financial situation but whoever is watering your tree while you are away could theoretically drive it to a place that does repotting services. Herons charges like 20 for the service.
 

BobbyLane

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
6,058
Reaction score
17,659
Location
London, England
first ask yourself why are you repotting? if youre repotting just because someone told you to repot every 2 or 3 years then that is the wrong reason. as long as your trees are healthy and draining properly then you can go 4 years or more between repots easily.

there is a good article on this somewhere, give me a mo ill dig it out for you.

ps do not take your trees to Herons!
 

BobbyLane

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
6,058
Reaction score
17,659
Location
London, England
here is a good article, it is a little long winded though, that is Potters style, i tend to skim the bits i dont need and absorb the meat and bones, that is my way of doing things. ive tried to highlight the meat and bones for you, but ill leave the link if you want to read all. the good thing about Potters stuff, he is vastly experienced and his advice is specific to our climate! he does like a bit of a rant at times!

So, here’s the thing. What’s the big deal with re-potting? 99% of the questions I receive concern re-potting. Before someone buys a tree they want to know when to re-pot. After they buy a tree they want to know when to re-pot. I see people re-potting new trees they just got, re-potting out of season in fact, looks to me like the bonsai community, and I use the term lightly, is totally and utterly obsessed with re-potting to the exclusion of all else.

So why on God’s green earth would you buy a bonsai tree and instantly assume it needs to be re-potted? Most bonsai trees are killed by over-work. In my estimation the number of bonsai trees sold in the UK that survive a ten year period are a single figure percentage. A lot of those die because they are literally pruned to death, weakened as a result. A lot die because of inappropriate horticultural care, like keeping them indoors or in other inappropriate situations. A few are poisoned with fertilisers and other snake oil concoctions. But, the lions share are killed by re-potting.

You would assume this is the exclusive domain of the novice who, on a good day I could excuse for their inexperienced fumblings and daft questions. We all have to kill a few trees, that’s the price of an education. But, sadly this issue seems to afflict even some of those with decades of experience. In that case it’s rare that trees actually end up dead but inappropriate re-potting is responsible for a lot of beautiful old bonsai trees being turned into raw material as they end up with juvenile vigour and loose their maturity.

I assume folk must read that a bonsai tree needs a free draining soil. Most bonsai trees you buy do not have a free draining soil, at least not in the estimation of many folk who are most likely not experienced enough to make that judgement. Trouble is, if you put a tree into a free draining soil mix how long will that last? Even the most open growing medium will close down after a while simply because it’s pore spaces are filled with pesky root. So you buy a tree and when you water it does not drop right out the bottom of the pot, it must need re-potting right? Perhaps a responsible person has spent several years making sure your new tree has a good strong and vibrant root system. Not always the case but mostly so. Going out and throwing that work away on an ignorant mis-understanding is criminal.

A bonsai tree, just re-potted in the right way, allows water to drop through the soil pretty quickly. However after a year or two that’s not going to be the case simply because the pot is filling with root, as it should be. So, then it takes a little longer to thoroughly wet the rootball when you water. On the other hand it can remain quite wet if it’s raining so then what? I have explained this so many times i just want to go chop my own head off. I have made videos and written dozens of times and explained it in demo’s and a thousand telephone conversations.

Bonsai trees go through phases of development. Initially we are looking for explosive rampant growth in order to build a powerful trunk. Subsequently we have to build primary branching, secondary branching and finally mature ramification. It is NOT possible to move onto any one of these phases before the proceeding step is complete. Each stage has it’s own technique too and using the wrong one won’t work. Anyone ever seen a trunk double in size where a tree is planted in a bonsai pot (in the UK)? Not in less than forty years you have not. In order to grow a big trunk you need a lot of growth. In nature a big tree carries a LOT of branching and foliage. I wrote about that at length here Upside Down Bonsai

That last phase of bonsai development is not understood by many folk. Remember when you were young you had boundless energy and strength to do most anything. Later on in life that started to fade but then you were a little smarter and so managed to compensate and do more with less. That is how we mature a bonsai tree. The whole process and point of ‘bonsai’ is to bring a tree to maturity in order to create a miniature characterisation of the venerable old soldiers that touch our souls. In the early stages we have to tolerate boundless explosive growth but the WHOLE object of the exercise is to bring a tree to a mature and stable place of balance exactly as happens in the trees wild natural home.

Trees in nature follow this path. When young they grow away like weeds exploding in every direction. Later on they become larger, heavy and tall. After decades they will begin to bump up against the law of scarcity. Limited resources in the form of water, sunlight and nutrients coupled with the effects of weather and competition mean that growth has to slow and mature. Rather than making huge straight and soft vulnerable new growth, a tree will begin to create a more robust, long lived and ultimately efficient fine ramification that is very good at what it does and looks beautiful to our eyes.

The law of scarcity or the scarcity principle has two sides, one being that all resources are limited, the other side is that demand is infinite. Limited resources are one half of the fundamental problem of scarcity that has plagued humanity since the beginning of time. The other half of the scarcity problem is unlimited wants and needs. The phrase limited resources means that the quantities of productive resources available are finite. That is what creates those beautiful old and mature trees that inspired us to go out and develop the whole idea of bonsai in the first place. Trees mature once they reach a point at which the resources available to them are no longer sufficient to fuel their infinite demand for increase. At that point a more careful and measured use of those resources means a stable and mature growth pattern that allows for the best return for energy expended.

The problem with bonsai is that most folk are obsessed with re-potting to the point where a tree never manages to mature. Free draining soil, hard pruning, excess fertilisers, too much water and inappropriate positioning will keep a tree young, possibly vigorous and trying it’s best to expand rapidly. That coupled with the owners immaturity, lack of patience and inexperience mean a tree can never truly mature and actually become bonsai. All clever wiring and pruning do is make a tree ‘look’ like bonsai. Actual bonsai is a mature and harmoniously balanced tree that is at one with nature and it’s surroundings and has reached perfect equilibrium based on the law of scarcity. I would call the process of achieving that state ‘bonsai’. The successful net result I would call a TREE.

This all feeds into so much of what goes on in bonsai, most of which is entirely unnatural and ultimately harmful to trees. How many times have you seen a discussion about how to reduce leaf or needle size. A mature and balanced bonsai tree will not have overly large leaves. If it’s mature it will have good dense ramification and a stable root system which interprets as nicely formed leaves. If you are trying to make bonsai from an Indian bean tree (Catalpa) this won’t work but the endeavour was doomed from the start.

If your pine tree grows big needles it’s because it needs them at this stage in it’s life. Inducing stress by doing something dastardly is not going to help, in fact it’s likely to severely upset your tree and retard it’s progress. Young pines have big needles. To get small needles you have to mature the tree and that takes a long time assuming you know what you are doing which many folk do not. Kids have excess energy. Gagging them and stapling them to a wall by their clothes may well arrest the annoying and excessive motions about the house for a while but it will not actually turn them into your venerable grandad. As soon as they get free again it’ s probably going to be worse than before.

Real bonsai technique is the art of marshalling natural forces that bear upon a tree to bring it to maturity. As in nature so in bonsai. It’s a finely balanced art form. Mastering this is a lifetimes work. Constant obsession with repotting bonsai, free draining soil, obsessive fertilising, unrestrained pruning and unnatural meddling is feckin’ stupid, don’t do it. Learn your horticulture folks!



 

sorce

Nonsense Rascal
Messages
32,908
Reaction score
45,579
Location
Berwyn, Il
USDA Zone
6.2
The repotting season is currently amidst an upgrade.

But yeah....

You don't even need to.

Sorce
 

leatherback

The Treedeemer
Messages
13,937
Reaction score
26,873
Location
Northern Germany
USDA Zone
7
Because he has a youtube channel which is part of what I draw on for bonsai wisdom
Don't..

Planning ahead to work around this: will my trees handle a repot in late December (Xmas holiday)? I'll be able to provide frost/wind protection afterwards. Here in south-west UK winters are mild-ish, rarely dropping below -10°C.
They will be fine. I repot all through winter, as my job untill recently (...) would take me away from home several times in spring, and I would run behind. So I pre-pot.

But as others have said.. Why would you. If you do have a bunch of trees that need repotting.. Sounds like a weekend at your parents' coming up!
 

BobbyLane

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
6,058
Reaction score
17,659
Location
London, England
yeh dont get me wrong, i actually repot anytime i want. if i buy a tree from a nursery in winter, i bring it home and i usually get it into a more manageable pot. ive even repotted two in the last few days, one a slip pot and one an old elm that had some root reduction, both went from ceramic pots to plastic pots just because they may be sold and i want to keep my pots. and i know what im doing and i know my trees and how much root removal they could take at any time, that takes a little while to figure out imo, ive killed a few in the past so i know the limits. but unless your trees are declining in health significantly there is simply no need. they should be fine until you have time to do it further down the line
 

BobbyLane

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
6,058
Reaction score
17,659
Location
London, England
Because he has a youtube channel which is part of what I draw on for bonsai wisdom

ok yeh i watch it too on occasion, but i wouldnt draw any inspiration or wisdom from his methods. sometimes i like to watch his hands on approach on the big raw stumps, i love raw material. but take his techniques with a pinch of salt. ive learnt far more from watching Graham potter, but too bad he doesnt make videos anymore.
 

Ollie

Yamadori
Messages
70
Reaction score
58
Location
South-West England
drive it to a place that does repotting services.

Good suggestion, unfortunately not sure the student loan will stretch that far.

first ask yourself why are you repotting?

You don't even need to.
Good point well received, this is definitely something I'm yet to fully appreciate.
However, all but a couple of my trees are still very much in development, and I put a lot of them in tiny pots with shite soil (largely peat, don't shoot me I'm new). So they NEVER drained well in the first place and I'm not getting the kind of growth that will develop them - so while I could wait, I'd like to expedite the process.

Sounds like a weekend at your parents' coming up!
Oh lord

Worst case I'll take them to uni and hope they don't get nicked / pissed on.

Thanks all for the great advice
 
Messages
246
Reaction score
363
Location
Britanny, France
USDA Zone
9
There was a old research article on sna.org. They had compared growth and frost damage depending of the repot date. From what I remember, beginning of autumn was good for both growth and frost hardiness, late autumn was worst for frost damage. Winter repotting was not bad for frost damage. The authors explained the results by the fact that late autumn repotting promotes new root growth that hasn't enough time to become cold hardy while winter repotting was not followed by root growth.
 

sorce

Nonsense Rascal
Messages
32,908
Reaction score
45,579
Location
Berwyn, Il
USDA Zone
6.2
I believe you can repot in England at any full moon just like us here.

Sorce
 

leatherback

The Treedeemer
Messages
13,937
Reaction score
26,873
Location
Northern Germany
USDA Zone
7
I believe you can repot in England at any full moon just like us here.

Sorce
I try to do that, and my neighbours complain about me mooning them!

Kidding aside.. I have repotted in pretty much every month of the year, and I do not even keep track of the moon!
 
Top Bottom