Hello everyone! I hope you're all doing well, staying healthy and staying busy with your trees.
I had to repot a larch my better half (@f1pt4) collected in 2016, which I unfortunately let go a little too long in its pot.
The roots were growing around the pot and I had to do a bit of work to get them in check.
Fortunately, the tap root was already cut fairly short during the collection process, so I didn't have to remove too much of it.
Here's a bit of the process I went through one warmer evening in the garage. I appreciate your thoughts and ideas...
The larch when it was first collected in 2016. A cute wee tree
Two views of the nebari. Obviously overgrown.
Obviously overgrown, but it had a lot of healthy roots.
Kids, don't let your trees get to this point! haha
I used a chopstick to delicately, but sometimes firmly untangle the roots.
A lot of them were growing around the pot; some were growing in towards the tap root, others were criss-crossing all over the place.
I chopped away the thick ones that had no fine roots growing from them, those growing from the bottom of the mass, including reducing what was left of the tap root (not much at all).
This is the amount of soil and roots that came off during the mutiny. The roots and rocks were separated from the soil, which will be reused for trees collected in the future.
(Yes, those are Nutella buckets!!!)
I had several pots to choose from, but the roots dictated an oblong, shallow-ish pot, as I wanted to make sure it fit the root ball.
The tree is firmly wired in to minimize movement in the pot. The stick in the pot is actually a spare piece of 6mm aluminium wire, which is wedged firmly between two walls of the pot.
It holds down a few key stray roots that want to pop up too much, but I didn't have a way to wire them in securely without damaging other roots.
For the soil mix, I used large pumice as a drainage layer, while mixing 1/1/1 1/8" pumice, lava and peat.
Since I removed so many roots, I decided to balance things out on the top by pruning back to some structural branches.
To finish, I sprinkled some more small peat particles on top of the soil and covered it with sphagnum moss to help it retain more moisture.
The tree is planted a little too high in the pot, in my opinion, but since it's not the final pot, so I'm ok with it.
It should also be off-centre towards the right, but the roots on the right are a little too lanky to chop them shorter at this point in time.
I'll address the placement in the next repot, when the rootmass is a little more developed on all sides.
From start to finish, this was a relaxed 1.5 hr process and the tree is now recovering in a grow box so it doesn't freeze in the next couple of nights.
Can't wait to see what you all post!
I had to repot a larch my better half (@f1pt4) collected in 2016, which I unfortunately let go a little too long in its pot.
The roots were growing around the pot and I had to do a bit of work to get them in check.
Fortunately, the tap root was already cut fairly short during the collection process, so I didn't have to remove too much of it.
Here's a bit of the process I went through one warmer evening in the garage. I appreciate your thoughts and ideas...
The larch when it was first collected in 2016. A cute wee tree
Two views of the nebari. Obviously overgrown.
Obviously overgrown, but it had a lot of healthy roots.
Kids, don't let your trees get to this point! haha
I used a chopstick to delicately, but sometimes firmly untangle the roots.
A lot of them were growing around the pot; some were growing in towards the tap root, others were criss-crossing all over the place.
I chopped away the thick ones that had no fine roots growing from them, those growing from the bottom of the mass, including reducing what was left of the tap root (not much at all).
This is the amount of soil and roots that came off during the mutiny. The roots and rocks were separated from the soil, which will be reused for trees collected in the future.
(Yes, those are Nutella buckets!!!)
I had several pots to choose from, but the roots dictated an oblong, shallow-ish pot, as I wanted to make sure it fit the root ball.
The tree is firmly wired in to minimize movement in the pot. The stick in the pot is actually a spare piece of 6mm aluminium wire, which is wedged firmly between two walls of the pot.
It holds down a few key stray roots that want to pop up too much, but I didn't have a way to wire them in securely without damaging other roots.
For the soil mix, I used large pumice as a drainage layer, while mixing 1/1/1 1/8" pumice, lava and peat.
Since I removed so many roots, I decided to balance things out on the top by pruning back to some structural branches.
To finish, I sprinkled some more small peat particles on top of the soil and covered it with sphagnum moss to help it retain more moisture.
The tree is planted a little too high in the pot, in my opinion, but since it's not the final pot, so I'm ok with it.
It should also be off-centre towards the right, but the roots on the right are a little too lanky to chop them shorter at this point in time.
I'll address the placement in the next repot, when the rootmass is a little more developed on all sides.
From start to finish, this was a relaxed 1.5 hr process and the tree is now recovering in a grow box so it doesn't freeze in the next couple of nights.
Can't wait to see what you all post!
