Blue Spruce from Box Store, Prune or Repot first

[RoneKiln]

I stumbled across a Colorado Blue Spruce I really like the trunk of at a local big box store. My Dad also recently commented on how much he loved the coloring of the Blue Spruce. So I picked it up for him for Fathers Day/Birthday (same weekend).

I had planned on doing some rough shaping for him (he dislikes initial shaping due to visualization challenges he has) and waiting till next spring to repot it with him. After cutting a hole in the burlap around the roots though, I see the soil holding the roots is very clay heavy and a solid chunk. I'm nervous it will have trouble absorbing water (saw another poster lose a tree due to this here on this site).

Should I hold off on shaping it till next year and repot it this year? I had really hoped to give it to him with some rough shaping already done, but I'd rather not harm the tree.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[fourteener]

I stumbled across a Colorado Blue Spruce I really like the trunk of at a local big box store. My Dad also recently commented on how much he loved the coloring of the Blue Spruce. So I picked it up for him for Fathers Day/Birthday (same weekend).

I had planned on doing some rough shaping for him (he dislikes initial shaping due to visualization challenges he has) and waiting till next spring to repot it with him. After cutting a hole in the burlap around the roots though, I see the soil holding the roots is very clay heavy and a solid chunk. I'm nervous it will have trouble absorbing water (saw another poster lose a tree due to this here on this site).

Should I hold off on shaping it till next year and repot it this year? I had really hoped to give it to him with some rough shaping already done, but I'd rather not harm the tree.

Thanks for any advice.

It depends on your weather right now. I could still do it because I have a couple of weeks of 50s and 60s coming up. After my season of repotting this year I will now always follow this basic routine.

Year one: Good bonsai soil
Year two: recovery
Year three: Start working the tree

I've let things sit around for a couple of years waiting for vigor to come, in the mean time plants were in crappy soil. And two years have been wasted because now I am still at waiting two more years to do anything.

Sometimes the danger of repotting too late in the season is lower than leaving the tree in the junk it comes in. I just bought an Hinoki Cypress last weekend and barerooted it here in my weather.

Young trees aren't as fragile, your weather matters, your concern about losing the plant are your factors for a decision. The loss of young immature stock doesn't matter too much to me at this point. Others have different tolerances.

 

[RoneKiln]

Thanks. I just tried to water it, and it's pretty obvious water is just running through the sides and not absorbing into the soil the roots are in. If it were in the ground I'm sure the water would eventually seep in, but in the pot, it just runs down the sides. I think I'm going to repot it without trimming the roots. Then we'll probably wait two years before trimming the roots and doing a much more complete cleaning of the roots.

Will probably be another two days till I can deal with that though, so any other advice is appreciated. I'll keep watering it the best I can till then. It's sitting on the north side of the house, so it doesn't get much direct sun. Hopefully it doesn't dehydrate too much.

 

[Adair M]

If/when you do this repot, see if you can expose about 1/2 inch of feeder roots all around the rootball. Make the rootball look fuzzy if you can. When you then pot into good soil these roots will be in good soil after you backfill and chopstick the roots in. They'll be in the good soil and will grow better.

If you don't do this, and just plop a solid rootball into good soil, the roots won't extend from the old rootball into the good soil as well. The change of soil type acts as a barrier.

 

[Jason_mazzy]

Did u check for a graft? I just checked mine and the graft is smaller then the trunk above it. Boooooooooo. Looks like it is a landscape tree now. I'll try an air layer higher up in the crown but the main trunk on mine is likely unusable now.

 

[Vance Wood]

A picture of the tree would sure help.

 

[fore]

I also just purchased a Mugo in burlap in heavy clay. I was told about the same as Adair said above. Since it's in burlap, that means it was taken out of the ground this yr...so it's had 'root work' done already. So I just scraped off the clay on the top, and used my rake to gently remove any loose clay being careful not to take out any roots. I did this to the sides and bottom. I really didn't remove much to be honest as I wanted to be careful. I potted it up in bonsai soil, and plan on removing the clay 50% one yr, and the other 50 % the next repotting. I've noticed already that the inorganic bonsai soil dries out quick, vs. the root mass stays a bit wet. I'm trying to figure out how much to water now. Good Luck!
Chris

 

[Vance Wood]

I also just purchased a Mugo in burlap in heavy clay. I was told about the same as Adair said above. Since it's in burlap, that means it was taken out of the ground this yr...so it's had 'root work' done already. So I just scraped off the clay on the top, and used my rake to gently remove any loose clay being careful not to take out any roots. I did this to the sides and bottom. I really didn't remove much to be honest as I wanted to be careful. I potted it up in bonsai soil, and plan on removing the clay 50% one yr, and the other 50 % the next repotting. I've noticed already that the inorganic bonsai soil dries out quick, vs. the root mass stays a bit wet. I'm trying to figure out how much to water now. Good Luck!
Chris

You have to keep the new soil wet enough so that roots will grow into it. I know a lot of the books and some people you talk to make a big deal out of this unequal growing condition. I have found it to not be such a big deal as long as you are continuing to work on the soil mass and not just simply settling for the difference. This is also why it is preferable to get new stock into a decent training pot when you start messing with the soil ball.

 

[Poink88]

I've noticed already that the inorganic bonsai soil dries out quick, vs. the root mass stays a bit wet. I'm trying to figure out how much to water now. Good Luck!

Chris, Note that eventually, as the new soil dries, it will suck the moisture away from your old organic soil. Not equal moisture throughout but not that much different either.

Might not be the case right away (like the first few days) but it will. Don't sweat it too much.

 

[fore]

You have to keep the new soil wet enough so that roots will grow into it. I know a lot of the books and some people you talk to make a big deal out of this unequal growing condition. I have found it to not be such a big deal as long as you are continuing to work on the soil mass and not just simply settling for the difference. This is also why it is preferable to get new stock into a decent training pot when you start messing with the soil ball.

Thanks Vance, so do I water when the orig. root mass gets dry, or water when the bonsai soil gets dry? Will misting help the process along too?

 

[Vance Wood]

Thanks Vance, so do I water when the orig. root mass gets dry, or water when the bonsai soil gets dry? Will misting help the process along too?

Water when the bonsai soil gets dry, if you don't, the new roots will not migrate into the new soil and the tree will start a rapid decline. One way to equalize the difference in soils is by drilling some holes down through the soil mass allowing the water to drain out and air to penetrate.

 

[fore]

Water when the bonsai soil gets dry, if you don't, the new roots will not migrate into the new soil and the tree will start a rapid decline. One way to equalize the difference in soils is by drilling some holes down through the soil mass allowing the water to drain out and air to penetrate.

Perfect! Thank You Vance, I appreciate the advice.

Chris

 

[RoneKiln]

Thank you everyone. I have been very impressed with the level of help I get on this site. It's occurred to me that this thing is native to Colorado, which does not get a lot of rain. It's used to drought. The heavy clay soil may not be as bad for it as I had feared in the short run. I'll still carefully work some roots free and get them planted in something that is airy and lets water pass through well. I won't try to get all the clay out though. I'll do it in stages over the next few years.

I am working a LOT of hours right now, so I can't get to a nursery for soil till Saturday. All my supplies are still at my Dad's a few hours away, and I don't want to clue him in as it will end up a gift to him. So I'll just go get some more.

Chris: Good point about having already had root work done this year when it was pulled out of the ground. I'll clean less of the clay from it than I originally intended.

Jason: I'm pretty sure there's no graft. If there is, it's hiding up in some of the dense foliage and I can't see it.

Vance: I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow night.

Luckily the three Boxwoods I picked up for him seem to be in pretty good soil and look to have been pot grown so the roots haven't been traumatized yet. So I can roughly shape those and leave them in their pot till next year. Then he can fine tune them himself in the next few years.

 

[fore]

Sounds like a good plan! I'm sure your dad will appreciate your effort!

 

[RoneKiln]

Update for everyone that helped me. I repotted the Spruce yesterday.

Big lesson learned from this tree was to be sure of what soil the thing is in before buying it. This poor guy was in a block of rock hard clay and I was not prepared for that. Even if I'd planted this into the ground at my parents, I'm sure it would have died, as my parents soil is extremely sandy, and I don't think any water would have penetrated that clay. Water would just drain off from around the clay and drain down through the sandy soil. It's a good thing I freed up some roots.

I had to chip in pretty far before I found much in the way of roots. The feeder roots seem to be mostly clustered close to the trunk about two inches down. There was a seem in the soil at that level that the roots seem to have had an easier time working their way into. There were also several large roots running out that had been chopped off when it was dug up and potted. After I got to the roots, I stopped chipping and began slowly working the clay free with running water. I freed up a good chunk of roots. The roots I freed up were so well arranged that they raked out without any effort (I had not intended to rake any roots out at this point, but they were already so close to being that way). You'd think someone had careful raked all the roots out and then buried them in clay mud. They were that nicely laid out already.

Next big lesson, be sure of what's in each bag of soil I buy. I picked up some pumice to replace the clay (could not find haydite or calcined clay locally). The smaller bags of it had clear windows and the pumice in them was clearly an ideal size for me and looked all nicely washed out. There was a bigger bag from the same line that appeared a better value but it did not have the same clear window in the packaging. After freeing up some roots and preparing to repot, I opened the bag to find it filled with lots of much finer particles than the smaller bags had.

I did not have my screens with me to sift out the fines. I had never expected to repot any of the trees I picked up, so I only snuck out my pruning tools from my parents. I've always done all our Bonsai activities there with my Dad. I figured even with the fines, it was probably better than what it had been in. So I set the now much smaller block of clay back in the pot and poured in the pumice. I trimmed off a few tiny damaged branches from near the base of the trunk (which helps show off the trunk) and left it at that.

This tree is not getting shaped at all this year. The roots have been pretty badly traumatized at this point. I mixed some weak repotting fertilizer/root growth hormone and watered it real good. I gave it water again this evening. It's sitting in the shade most of the day and gets a little direct sun in the evening. I'll give it a few days for the soil to dry out (or so I expect, will watch it close), and then continue to give it diluted fertilizer with its water for a bit. I expect it'll need to be watered one more time just before giving it to my Dad.

So I'm disappointed I can't shape it before he gets it, but I don't want to traumatize it that bad. I have some concerns for its health already. At least the Boxwoods I got him seem to be in awesome soil and were fun to shape for him. I expect they'll do quite well.

Thanks everyone! I'll give updates from time to time on how it does.

 

[Vance Wood]

Has this tree put on any new growth so far this year? I was kind of surprised to read that you decided to rake out a bunch of soil and roots. I thought we had come to some sort of meeting of the minds where you were going to leave the tree alone for awhile. By the way; fertilizer will have absolutely no positive effect on a tree that is not growing.

It is my opinion that time has come to leave this tree alone. Trees are not puppy dogs where you can do something today and see results tomorrow other than those results you do not want to see.

 

[Paradox]

Ill second Vance's fertilizer comment. Conventional wisdom is to not fertilize a repotted tree for at least a month after repot, or at the very absolute minimum until it starts to show some growth/recovery.

It is a bit late for repotting so you've undoubtedly stressed the tree more than when done at the right time.

I agree that no matter how much you or your dad would like to style it, please, please leave the tree alone until next year at the very least or you could find yourself with a dead tree!

 

[RoneKiln]

It will not be styled at all this year. Maybe not for two years.

I did not fully repot it. I just carefully worked some of the feeder roots free so it could get water, as was suggested to me here. The bulk of it is still in that massive block of clay. The roots I did work free were near perfectly laid out already, as if they'd already been raked.

I was able to run water on the clay it was in for several minutes, scratch the soil, and the water had only penetrated an eighth to a quarter of an inch. When I watered it, everything had just been running down the sides of the pot. I'm sure when still in the ground, water eventually worked it's way through the soil. But when put in a pot and surrounded with well draining bark (that's what it came in), nothing was getting to those roots.

There is a lot of new growth on it. The weak fertilizer I'm using is some of the repotting stuff that's supposed to help with transplanting shock.

My Dad was pretty happy to receive it last night. I warned him of what it went through, and he'll watch it closely. We'll know in a few months how this all went.

 

[october]

No pictures of this tree?

Rob

 

[Vance Wood]

No pictures of this tree?

Rob

My question as well.