more potting

This is my gin&tonic calamondon tree. It had been in this pot for 2 years and was ready for a larger pot and some fresh soil.

This is its second repotting in my care. This was akadama bought off amazon with a little compost - and its worked very well. The roots are beautiful.

Excellent roots. No rot at all. Great health. I was so very pleased when i pulled this out of the pot and saw how healthy the roots were.

Its growth had been exceptionally strong this last year.

These plants are very hungry and need a huge amount of fertiliser in the sterile soil. Full strength at least once a week.

The roots are well organised and worked out perfectly radially with a rake. They were well organised from the previous repotting so it was quick and easy. A few more years and those surface roots are going to look very good. I cleaned off the old soil and trimmed lightly.






Its been planted into quite a large pot. I'm using biosorb and pine bark. about 4:1 mix ratio. There is a 1.5cm drainage of layer of coarse soil.

After 2 weeks the tree is looking greener then before it was potted. It seems quite happy with the new pot.

The plant is now in a totally inert pH neutral soil. I have a new fertiliser regimen planned and i hope for very strong growth this year. That trunk is still way too skinny.

PS - a few days later

In most respects this calamondon behaves like a kumquat. So it appreciates a deeper pot as the roots like to go deep - similar to pomegranate with the deep pots and heavy feeding requirements. They seem to be less PH sensitive than pomegranate though. I have potted it over a very generous drainage layer of course soil particles. 3 weeks after repotting and it is back budding vigorously.

repotting season

Time to re-pot some of the yamadori i bought last year. They have settled down nicely and its time to get rid of the old akadama that's turning to mud and get them into pots that drain freely.

I cleared the top soil till i hit the upper roots. i also wanted to get the grass and weeds out of the soil as i find these can impact the growth and health of the plants.

This is my large Scots pine and is 105cm from the ground level potted.

please note my high tech rake.

The roots are gently combed out radially. moss and weeds cleared until the major radial roots are reached.










I took my time clearing out as much of the original soil and akadama as possible without cutting any major roots.

There was plenty of good fungus on the roots and i preserved as much of this as possible to "seed" the new pot.

I kept several long sections of heavy fungied root to jump start the growth in the new pot.

Some of the roots doing laps at the bottom were also grass roots. some sort of forest grass that just wont give up.

Sadly there was a lot of rot at the bottom which pulled clear freely as a disc.

The pot i bought it wasn't very good for drainage.

Ive got some sphagnum down in the bottom of the pot to make the roots happy.

There is also a generous drainage layer under the moss.

The cat approved of the moss.





If this puts out good candles this summer and is vigorous i hope to be able to cut it back quite hard so i can begin to place the structure for some good foliage pads. Plenty of time though - i see this one as a 15 year project.

Snow

Big Scots pine in the snow. Even this bigger one is getting its branches bent a little by the weight of the snow.
















Small Scots. I flicked a bit of snow off the poor thing because some of the branches were bending rather a lot.


I'm hoping my new soil and pots are here in time to repot these pines for next year. The plastic yamadori pots don't give a great deal of dignity to them.

Young oaks. They should be OK i guess ?