Ryan Neil's Latest Repotting Video

[MaciekA]

Anyone have a link? Is this one behind the paywall?

It's on the Mirai youtube channel and you'll spot it with the title "second repotting on a ponderosa".

Worth noting: The video in question is from 4 years ago, so it's not actually the "latest" repotting video (for any subscribers in this thread who are scratching their heads right now).

If you have the paid version of Mirai Live then you can go watch a very recent (last few weeks) detailed 3 hour+ "shin" lecture which details Ryan's thinking on the topic, and mentions other methods like HBR as well as Tom Fincel's top-down method. He still doesn't like those as much as his surround-and-gradually-replace technique.

 

[chicago1980]

I'm not a subscriber to Mirai live and I've wonderd for a while now how/when he deals with the field soil at the center of the root ball beneath the trunk. At some point in the video, Ryan alludes to the fact that his approach departs from what he learned in Japan; I find that very interesting. I also wonder if there's kind of a standard method among Japanese professionals dealing with field soil in the "shin". Maybe they all use something like Boon's method. Do any of you subscribers know how Ryan's method differs from Kimura's?

He explained this in the video.

 

[BobbyLane]

It's on the Mirai youtube channel and you'll spot it with the title "second repotting on a ponderosa".

Worth noting: The video in question is from 4 years ago, so it's not actually the "latest" repotting video (for any subscribers in this thread who are scratching their heads right now).

If you have the paid version of Mirai Live then you can go watch a very recent (last few weeks) detailed 3 hour+ "shin" lecture which details Ryan's thinking on the topic, and mentions other methods like HBR as well as Tom Fincel's top-down method. He still doesn't like those as much as his surround-and-gradually-replace technique.

I saw this as well somewhere, again this isnt new or special really. its standard that you should tease out the top of a nursery plant or any plant, because you want to get to the surface and see where youre at. again this process if often overlooked by beginners and even long termers who buy trees and post them up without even teasing out the top surface, we see it all the time on here.
So what he's talking about here is basically teasing out the top surface and leaving the bottom for a while, he says that most others remove from the bottom up, but what you should really be doing is first uncovering the surface roots or at the least seeing how far the trunk goes down before it reaches some type of nebari, then you can slice a little off the bottom and sides.

an example of that is this hornbeam from a nursery that was in a deep air pot

revealing and teasing out what surface roots there are, because not only do you want to see the nebari but you also want to get fresh soil in and around the surface, then the sides then the base. leaving a lot of the rootball intact

done

about a year later, you can clearly see new roots and theres still a bunch of nursery soil in there

sliced a bit more off the base, but still leaving a core of nursery soil in the bonsai pot

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only 1-2 years later

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[BobbyLane]

Forgot to reference the video the chap above was talking about. these ideas are not special techniques, just different ways of doing things, 'experimenting' this is what you do when you become hands on, you learn all this stuff by yourself, you make your own rules. you repot whenever you want and the tree doesnt even realise it was repotted!!

 

[mrcasey]

He explained this in the video.

He definitely explains in detail how he deals with field soil at the center of the root ball. He doesn't, however, mention how Kimura deals with field soil in the root ball. That's what I was curious about after having watched the video.

 

[mrcasey]

The technique he uses in the video, is a technique he learned from Kimura.

I agree completely with the rest of your post, but Ryan suggests that he was using a technique that he pieced together on his own when dealing with a shin containing field soil. At about the 2:34:20 mark, Ryan says that it took him 10 years to work this method out and that, "Nobody really taught me this."

 

[Joe Dupre']

I liked the video, but did anyone else think the pot was conspicuously too small and the planting angle seemed to make the tree look unstable and ready to fall over? It actually gave me an uneasy feeling.

 

[chicago1980]

I liked the video, but did anyone else think the pot was conspicuously too small and the planting angle seemed to make the tree look unstable and ready to fall over? It actually gave me an uneasy feeling.

Part of me thinks it is the feet on the pot.

 

[Johma]

Very interesting video. Thanks for posting

 

[Joe Dupre']

Part of me thinks it is the feet on the pot.View attachment 471809

Yes, the feet add to that unsteady feeling.

 

[Gabler]

Yes, the feet add to that unsteady feeling.

Even when I cover the feet, there’s no way that tree is standing on its own. There’s gotta be buckshot mixed into the substrate.

 

[Joe Dupre']

I really don't like the trend of smaller and smaller pots. It's almost like smaller is better so REALLY small is the best.

 

[Scorpius]

I have to have larger pots or all my trees would die in the summer heat.

 

[R0b]

I really don't like the trend of smaller and smaller pots. It's almost like smaller is better so REALLY small is the best.

Agree, Ryan does explain in his content what the limitations are and that it is only a good idea if you are sure you can take care of the tree in a small container. However people will still follow his example.

 

[Potawatomi13]

Part of me thinks it is the feet on the pot

Indeed. Curious why cloud feet instead of sturdy solid feet normally used for gnarly pine.

 

[R0b]

Anyone have a link? Is this one behind the paywall?

 

[leatherback]

Indeed - Ryan made it very clear that he isn't a fan of the 1/2 bare root method.

Yup, he adds some ideas there. I am not sure he represents the HBR properly; the stuff he sais how this is handled is not how I handle it.

What I miss is the fact (which you see in his tree) that you pot it up, and all the roots are on the outside. Where he is removing the fieldsoil, you have had very imited new roots developing. Do you are actually not building a healthy core. I think that the talking in extremes that some of these experts do does not help people understand how each situation requires a judgement on what is best for that individual tree.

here (linked to the specific section):

 

[Maiden69]

maybe someone with more knowledge of how Ryan deals with his yamadori pines could chime in.

He does them the same way he explained on the video... but to conifers. He added that some deciduous are ok to bareroot, those that he consider "not" shin based.

I liked the video, but did anyone else think the pot was conspicuously too small and the planting angle seemed to make the tree look unstable and ready to fall over? It actually gave me an uneasy feeling.

It looked kinda small, but as stated above the placement of the feet makes it look smaller. The tree spent over 10 years in that pot after the first repot from wooden box to bonsai container, so it is big enough to support the tree. Also, bear in mind that the tree was not styled. If you follow most of Ryan's techniques, he will probable pull the foliage towards the trunk which will make it look more balanced.

The more I learn the less I understand. If only half the root ball is bare rooted, I assume the tree is then in two types of soil when repotted, and have read that roots can be hesitant to jump from one medium to another. Has this been an issue with half-bare rooting?

This is the main critique point Ryan makes for disliking the HBR technique. He added that while a lot of professionals use that technique he don't think it is the best for the tree. As the tree will prefer to fill the new domesticated soil and stop favoring the use of the roots on the native soil. I did my first black pine as a HBR, all my other pines have been done the way Ryan does, and in the case of young JBP I have bare rooted them and moved into inorganic soil, those have grown way faster than the HBR one.

 

[chicago1980]

I really don't like the trend of smaller and smaller pots. It's almost like smaller is better so REALLY small is the best.

What size pot would you suggest in comparison to the current pot?

I don't see the pot as small as much as I see there is too much foliage still for the size of the design.

Thanks for sharing

 

[Joe Dupre']

What size pot would you suggest in comparison to the current pot?

I don't see the pot as small as much as I see there is too much foliage still for the size of the design.

Thanks for sharing

My preference would be for a pot about 3 inches wider and about 3/4" shallower, with the tree placed closer to the right side of the new pot. Not saying that it's the conventional ideal, just my preference. Right now, the pot puts me in mind of a slightly too small boller hat on a chubby fellow.