Potting | Bonsai South

Spring Work – Potting And Repotting

by Zach Smith | Mar 4, 2018 | Bald Cypress, Care, Chinese Elm, Elms, Potting, Pruning, Soil

The beat goes on. As I mentioned yesterday, spring is the time when you need to do all sorts of things all at once. One of those things is potting. Another, related, is repotting. Here are today’s subjects.

Here’s my Chinese elm, Ulmus parvifolia, that you can learn more about on its Progression page. Last fall, I decided that this view of the tree didn’t really show it off to best advantage. I liked the one below better.

Better trunk movement, better tapering transition, all in all just better. Today it was time to turn it in the pot.

I took off only enough root to fit the tree in the pot, including a small amount at the bottom of the root mass to allow for a little drainage layer (till the roots grow down into that area, of course). The tree won’t mind this at all.

Tied down and filled in with fresh soil. As you may be able to see, the tree is leafing out. I prefer to do my work on Chinese elms when the buds are swelling, not in the dead of winter. I also lift them from the growing beds at this time.

Here’s a two-tree Bald cypress planting I got from a fellow grower last fall. I figured it would make a nice composition more or less as-is. Today it was time to make this happen.

I happened to have this antique Tokoname tray on the shelf, and I thought it would complement these two trees very well.

A good bit of root had to go, in order to fit these two trees into the tray properly. I also took off a lot of the upper parts of the trees. That should help balance things.

Here they are, placed in the tray.

And the tray filled in with soil. These trees are already budding, and I don’t anticipate potting them will delay their growth too much. In a couple of weeks, they should be filled out pretty well.

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Collecting Season Ends – Got Some Nice Cedar Elms

by Zach Smith | Feb 25, 2018 | Care, Collecting, Elms, Potting

Spring has come very early to the Deep South. Things are blooming and budding. Yesterday Cathy and I were able to collect some Cedar elms (Ulmus crassifolia), and I think we got some very nice material. Here are a few specimens that I hope to be able to offer soon.

Here’s a nice barky specimen with good movement and taper. The trunk base is just under 2″, and it’s chopped at 13″. Given how fast Cedar elms grow, I should have a basic design established on this tree by summer.

I don’t know about you, but one of my favorite bonsai styles is the simple upright tree. That’s how most trees grow, after all. This one is going to do well.

I think this is my favorite from the trip. Isn’t that shari near the base terrific? Plus the movement, plus the taper, plus the bark. And what’s more, this tree is smaller that the ones above. The trunk base is only 1″ at the soil. But great things often come in small packages.

I really like group plantings, so we harvested several smaller specimens in order to make a couple this year. These three trees looking like they belong together, so I went ahead and potted them up with that idea in mind. Assuming they all make it, I should be able to slip-pot them into a bonsai container this summer.

I’d love to hear what you think of these Cedar elms.

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Hackberry Collecting Goes Well – Weather Sucked

by Zach Smith | Feb 18, 2018 | Care, Collecting, Hackberry, Potting

So we left home on Friday around noon to travel to North Mississippi, where I was meeting up with a friend to go Hackberry (Celtis laevigata) collecting. It was almost 80° and sunny when we left. 300 miles later, the temperature was about 45° and it was overcast. Next morning, it was 40° and raining. Brrr! Collecting is sorta like the Postal Service – neither rain nor hail, etc. So off we went. Here are some of the trees we got.

Here’s a neat stump I’m planning to hang onto for a few years and see what I can make of it. The trunk base is 3″ above the root crown, and it’s chopped at 13″. What’s really nice about this specimen is the warty bark, which Hackberries develop over time. So it’s got some age going for it.

But it gets even better when you turn it around. How about this nice shari from top to bottom? There’s no way I can not make this a feature of the bonsai I’ll be developing from it. It’s just too cool and natural.

The big flaw in this tree is the obvious lack of surface roots on the left side and in the back. But not to worry, I can ground-layer roots where I need them. That won’t happen until next year (assuming the tree survives collecting); stay tuned.

This is another very nice specimen I brought home. This one has good surface rootage, and nice trunk movement and taper. The base is 3.5″ above the root crown, and it’s chopped at 18″. Very nice proportions in the making.

Here it is to your right, all potted up snugly.

There were a ton of small trees just begging to be made into forest plantings, so I brought a bunch of them home. Here’s a tubful.

I should know in about four to six weeks if these trees will recover. With a little luck I’ll be able to post some for sale in April.

More Great BC Material – Collecting Trip 3

by Zach Smith | Jan 27, 2018 | Bald Cypress, Care, Collecting, Potting

The weather was dodgy today, meaning we had a torrential downpour all across South Louisiana. We did have the good fortune to be able to collect a few nice trees before the sky really opened up, however. Here are a few photos to give you an idea of how we did.

This is the biggest tree we got today, and probably the most unusual. Out in the wild, Cypresses tend to grow with very straight trunks that sometimes feature just a little movement. This particular specimen evidently had something happen to it when it was much younger, and it subsequently righted itself which produced a neat curve in the trunk.

The tree looks good from either side. I’m thinking this may be the better front. What’s your preference? The trunk is 6″ across 6″ above the soil surface, and it’s 27″ to the chop. This is going to be a powerful Bald cypress bonsai.

How about a formal upright BC? I collected this one because of the terrific fluting and buttressing all around. It’s a classic specimen BC. The trunk is 5″ 5″ above the soil, and it’s chopped at 24″.

This is probably my favorite from today’s group. The trunk is 4″, and it’s chopped at 25″, but I just love the buttressing roots, fluting, trunk movement, and taper. I see a very nice informal upright Bald cypress bonsai with this one. I think I’ll hold it for training.

Our BC stock is growing for 2018. I’m planning two or three more trips, so I should have something for everyone who’s contacted us. Stay tuned.

The Learning Never Stops – Here Are A Few Survivors

by Zach Smith | Nov 11, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Crape myrtle, Elms, Potting

I do all sorts of things with trees, some good and some bad but all with the best of intentions. The ultimate goal is a great bonsai that really makes you think it’s a real tree. My preference is to speed up the process as much as possible. Here are a few examples of trees that (so far) have survived my good intentions.

You probably remember this Cedar elm, Ulmus crassifolia, from a couple of weeks ago. I was trying to decide which pot worked best, and most of you picked this one. Last weekend I took the plunge and slip-potted it. It doesn’t seem to have minded at all.

Here’s another victim of fall slip-potting, a nice Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). As with the Cedar elm, it didn’t mind a bit. Not even the slightest protest.

Here’s a Crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica (purple flowers), made from a cutting this year. What I like about it is the neat movement in the trunk – which was originally nice movement in a branch I pruned off of another bonsai and rooted. That got me to thinking literati.

I had this neat small pot lying around, so after some quick pruning and wiring and a lot of root-pruning, voila! A very small literati Crape myrtle. I don’t know yet, but I suspect it’ll come through fine.

Let’s See If I Can Kill This Bald Cypress

by Zach Smith | Oct 21, 2017 | Bald Cypress, Care, Potting, Styling, Wiring

In bonsai we learn the real lessons by doing. With that said, there’s no way to learn everything about every species of tree or shrub in every specimen that comes into your care. The closest you can come is if you have many specimens that are all the same size from the same origin and you can practice real science on them. Otherwise, you piece together lessons along the way into a set of guidelines.

Back in September I got the itch to start making something out of this Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). Now, this tree is not going to end up at the National Arboretum. At the same time, something very nice can be made out of it. It’s got some trunk character from its time in the swamp, and a little curve to the trunk along with just about ideal taper. There’s even a stabilizing root in the right spot (to go along with some radial roots that will develop well in a pot).

There’s more to this tree’s story. Way back in spring, it budded weakly and I had become convinced it wasn’t going to survive collecting. It stubbornly refused to die, while also stubbornly refusing to put on much growth. So I set it on the bench and left it alone to live or die. After several months it started to push some “survival growth.” What’s survival growth? That’s the second round of growth that is fueled by new roots. Deciduous trees will push a round of buds and shoots after you collect them. The roots come next. If your first set of shoots extends just a few inches and then stops, your tree is at risk and likely to die. If the growth continues on and gets stronger, you know there’s roots down under.

Anyway, this tree finally decided to live by pushing a second round of growth that extended with vigor. So I decided to wire a design into it with the idea of making it more than it looked like wanting to be. Then I ignored it a while longer, and wouldn’t you know, it pushed a few more shoots that said “I’m getting stronger.”

Today I took the opportunity to do an experiment with Bald cypress. We can call this experiment “Fall root-pruning and potting of Bald cypress displaying limited vigor.” Even though the tree clearly recovered from its early torpor, it grew nothing like most of them do through summer. So there’s definitely a risk in disturbing its roots at this late point in the season. But you know, if it survives and prospers next year, I will have learned a very valuable lesson about the limits of Bald cypress.

Here’s step one. This photo was taken after I cut off a pencil-thick root growing straight down, that incidentally had a nice bunch of fibrous roots at the end. I would have preferred not doing this, but nothing ventured nothing gained. My goal here was not to do a slip-potting, but rather something more drastic. It’s the only way to really push this envelope.

And now the tree is installed in its training pot. I don’t know if you noticed, but if you compare the first and second photos of this tree you can see the new shoots that sprouted up near the top of the tree, along with the extension of the apex to the tune of several inches. Nice late-season strength.

Now I go back to ignoring this bonsai to be. There’s not much growing time left this year, but I do expect renewed growth in the root zone and possibly even a little above ground. Then we’ll see if winter can derail us.

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