Sunday 30 January 2011

repotting season

Time to re-pot some of the yamadori i bought last year. They have settled down nicely and its time to get rid of the old akadama that's turning to mud and get them into pots that drain freely.


I cleared the top soil till i hit the upper roots. i also wanted to get the grass and weeds out of the soil as i find these can impact the growth and health of the plants.

This is my large Scots pine and is 105cm from the ground level potted.

please note my high tech rake.




The roots are gently combed out radially. moss and weeds cleared until the major radial roots are reached.










I took my time clearing out as much of the original soil and akadama as possible without cutting any major roots.









There was plenty of good fungus on the roots and i preserved as much of this as possible to "seed" the new pot.

I kept several long sections of heavy fungied root to jump start the growth in the new pot.

Some of the roots doing laps at the bottom were also grass roots. some sort of forest grass that just wont give up.


Sadly there was a lot of rot at the bottom which pulled clear freely as a disc.

The pot i bought it wasn't very good for drainage.






Ive got some sphagnum down in the bottom of the pot to make the roots happy.

There is also a generous drainage layer under the moss.

The cat approved of the moss.





If this puts out good candles this summer and is vigorous i hope to be able to cut it back quite hard so i can begin to place the structure for some good foliage pads. Plenty of time though - i see this one as a 15 year project.