WaywardSol
Seedling
Figured I'd jump in with a current project!
About a week and a half ago I came across some blue pacific juniper on clearance at a local nursery. They had a pretty hard winter, were quite pot bound, and a lot of the interior had died off so they were nicely discounted at 6 bucks.
It's just a hair late here in SC for repotting but not to much so I took a chance given how pot bound it was. I did what I'd term somewhere between a full and a slip repotting- Worked down the surface to get to the base, cut down the root ball so it'd fit into a new pot with a good margin, teased the edges a bit, and repotted filling the margin with my standard bonsai mix of calcined clay (diamond pro top dressing in this case and a little leftover oil dry), perlite, fine pine bark nuggets, and some peat moss. The remaining root ball was fairly undisturbed to be addressed at a later repot. Given the timing and minimal fresh root growth visible I figured this to be a reasonable strategy.
I also pruned to remove clogged interior and allow for better light and air flow, bit heavy but not nearly as drastic as it'd seem looking at a before and after as much of what was removed was largely dead or nearly so. I also went ahead and wired it. Not my best wiring job as it was getting late, but eh it worked lol. And lastly top dressed with some moss I ground up by hand.
Juniper I selected from the nursery-
Taken right after repotting about a week ago-
And lastly a photo taken this afternoon. Nice new tips and seems to be responding well. It's definitely not a final wiring or styling by any means, nor as it the best wiring I've ever done since it was getting late, but it's a start to get some basic placement and arrangement for good light exposure. Not sure right now if I intend to keep it roughly the current size or a bit bigger for a smaller tree, or if I want to let the branch at the 12 o'clock position run as a new trunk line to twist back into a nice shape to develop as a bigger tree-
About a week and a half ago I came across some blue pacific juniper on clearance at a local nursery. They had a pretty hard winter, were quite pot bound, and a lot of the interior had died off so they were nicely discounted at 6 bucks.
It's just a hair late here in SC for repotting but not to much so I took a chance given how pot bound it was. I did what I'd term somewhere between a full and a slip repotting- Worked down the surface to get to the base, cut down the root ball so it'd fit into a new pot with a good margin, teased the edges a bit, and repotted filling the margin with my standard bonsai mix of calcined clay (diamond pro top dressing in this case and a little leftover oil dry), perlite, fine pine bark nuggets, and some peat moss. The remaining root ball was fairly undisturbed to be addressed at a later repot. Given the timing and minimal fresh root growth visible I figured this to be a reasonable strategy.
I also pruned to remove clogged interior and allow for better light and air flow, bit heavy but not nearly as drastic as it'd seem looking at a before and after as much of what was removed was largely dead or nearly so. I also went ahead and wired it. Not my best wiring job as it was getting late, but eh it worked lol. And lastly top dressed with some moss I ground up by hand.
Juniper I selected from the nursery-
Taken right after repotting about a week ago-
And lastly a photo taken this afternoon. Nice new tips and seems to be responding well. It's definitely not a final wiring or styling by any means, nor as it the best wiring I've ever done since it was getting late, but it's a start to get some basic placement and arrangement for good light exposure. Not sure right now if I intend to keep it roughly the current size or a bit bigger for a smaller tree, or if I want to let the branch at the 12 o'clock position run as a new trunk line to twist back into a nice shape to develop as a bigger tree-
