Procumbens Nana - Cascade Style in a Sorce Pot

[SilverShoe99]

I've got a couple one gallon Procumbens Nana junipers that I've been growing out from nursery stock over the last couple years. They were big box store purchases, and my initial plan was to use them to learn about repotting. I did some cleaning and minor foliage pruning, but the real priority was to get them out of the nursery growout mix, learn to build an appropriate substrate for my climate, and repot. Here are the only photos I've got from that work, all they show are how I prepped the 6" terracotta pot I used for growout, and then a poorly framed topshot of one of the trees potted in the substrate. This was August 2019.



The trees responded quite well to the repotting, growing undisturbed and quite vigorously. Here's a photo of today's subject tree in September '20, just over a year on from the repot.



I've been eyeballing this guy for a few months now with an eye towards doing an initial style and repot into a pretty sweet @sorce Pot I picked up a while ago. And, yesterday was the day. As per usual, I didn't think to stop and take any photos until I was already elbows deep into wiring and branch selection, so the next photos start someway through the work.



Wired and cleaned some foliage



There are two cascading trunks on this tree - I'm not sure that's a "thing," but it's what the tree gave me so it's what we're going with for now and I think it actually works.



There's the new pot next to the terracotta job it has been growing out in. You can see that they're very similarly sized, so this shouldn't be a tough adjustment for the tree.



This is a pretty easy pot to prep, only one drainage hole to mesh over. Love that Sorce Chop!



Here's the rootball fresh out of the terracotta pot. I'm very happy with the root development and substrate performance. I still consider myself an inexperienced novice, but to my eyes the tree'd have been happy for another season or two in that pot with that substrate - not nearly rootbound yet.

 

[SilverShoe99]

Here's the removed substrate. Still in pretty great shape, not really broken down at all. Definitely seems like it could have supported the tree in great health for another season or two.



Here's the rootball after chopsticking the bottom 2/3 of the substrate out, no roots trimmed at all yet.



The untrimmed underside of the rootmass, nice healthy growing root tips



And the final, pruned down rootball.



Voila, final result



This is an image showing the movement and direction of the two trunks. I think this tree works!

 

[sorce]

This is exactly what is supposed to happen with these pots!

I picture them perfect for a 1gl thing since the volume is the same. Then I think about all the "1gl cascades" that get skinned to nothing and we never see them again.

To see such a bushy thing in there with such great potential is quite satisfying.
Quite correct.

The pot to tree proportion feels good too.

Thank You!

Sorce

 

[SilverShoe99]

@sorce, I'm not sure I'd have worked the tree the way I did if I hadn't had the pot to inspire me. It's all a virtuous circle - the gratitude definitely goes both ways!

 

[SilverShoe99]

This tree responded really well to the repot back in February. It's gotten pretty hairy over the last six months or so and developed lots of scale foliage. I went in there today and cleaned it up a bit. I haven't done any detail wiring on it, but I'm starting to see some pad definition in there. I'm excited to see where this one goes.

The first photo is before today's work, the second is after I've gone through and cleaned it out. The last couple photos show some wire scarring...I'll have to pay much closer attention in the future...