Potting Larch

[Shamino]

I live in rural Maine where our woods are full of Larch trees of all different sizes. If I were to make a small Larch forest in the spring, can I safely dig the trees out and transplant directly into a bonsai pot or would that harm/kill them?

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Likely be a better idea to compose the forest with minimal root reduction and put the composition in a box to recover.

There are a number of larch yamadori folks on this forum, @August44 is one. Perhaps he will chime in.

cheers
DSD sends

 

[Paradox]

Putting directly into a bonsai pot will probably involve removing too many roots at one time to fit it.

As stated above, one or more pots gradually reducing in size and the root mass over a few years would be better to transition to a bonsai pot

 

[Eckhoffw]

Like @Deep Sea Diver said, put it in a container plenty large, to accommodate all the fine roots you can.
This may or may not restrict the way you place your trees.

I suggest being creative in how you group them together, nestling the roots so they can be close enough to make a convincing group.

Then I’d leave it in that container for 2 or more seasons, and then think about a repot the following spring.
Sounds fun. I luv larch.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

Larch din’t respond well to root disturbance in my experience. You have to catch them when the buds are just starting to show green and then have about a week to repot them. Outside of that timing they may live but more likely will either die that spring or not survive the summer heat stress.