FiggieSmalls
Yamadori
Hey folks,
Got a sad bougainvillea here. Acquired two years ago, and I wasn't brave enough to do root work. That is, until recently...
She was definitely alive, but seemed to be stunted. Now I think I understand why, and I'm hopeful that she'll recover but not sure.
Anyway, after digging a bit, I discovered two concerning developments. First, she had these long & thick circling roots that had to go. These were impressive roots I gotta say... I think there were just 2 or 3 of them, but as I followed them they just kept going around and around the root ball lol. Here's a pic
Then I made the 2nd concerning discovery--a major section of the trunk has completely rotted out. I suspect it's been this way for a long time, but anyway I just picked away a bunch of dead wood with my finger and it crumbled easily into sawdust.
This brings me to the question at hand. After removing the problematic roots, I tried to leave the remaining root ball undisturbed as best I could and repotted with a substantial layer of drainage at the bottom (typical inorganic bonsai substrate--large(ish) grain pumice & acadama basically). And now the part of the trunk that had rot is exposed to the air. The existing root ball is buried ay a reasonable depth I think. But she's kind of wobbly now. So I'm just wondering if I should have actually buried her deeper in order to encourage new root growth from higher up on the trunk? Or is it probably best to have her buried more shallow like she is in order to prevent/slow further rot of the trunk? Not that I can really do anything about it right now... except maybe try to air layer or something like that...
Some pics below, post-repot:
Thanks all!
Figgie
Got a sad bougainvillea here. Acquired two years ago, and I wasn't brave enough to do root work. That is, until recently...
She was definitely alive, but seemed to be stunted. Now I think I understand why, and I'm hopeful that she'll recover but not sure.
Anyway, after digging a bit, I discovered two concerning developments. First, she had these long & thick circling roots that had to go. These were impressive roots I gotta say... I think there were just 2 or 3 of them, but as I followed them they just kept going around and around the root ball lol. Here's a pic
Then I made the 2nd concerning discovery--a major section of the trunk has completely rotted out. I suspect it's been this way for a long time, but anyway I just picked away a bunch of dead wood with my finger and it crumbled easily into sawdust.
This brings me to the question at hand. After removing the problematic roots, I tried to leave the remaining root ball undisturbed as best I could and repotted with a substantial layer of drainage at the bottom (typical inorganic bonsai substrate--large(ish) grain pumice & acadama basically). And now the part of the trunk that had rot is exposed to the air. The existing root ball is buried ay a reasonable depth I think. But she's kind of wobbly now. So I'm just wondering if I should have actually buried her deeper in order to encourage new root growth from higher up on the trunk? Or is it probably best to have her buried more shallow like she is in order to prevent/slow further rot of the trunk? Not that I can really do anything about it right now... except maybe try to air layer or something like that...
Some pics below, post-repot:
Thanks all!
Figgie