Two Weeks Without Drainage

I can't believe it's been four months since my last post.

Okay, I guess the fact that it's winter in South Africa counts as an excuse of sorts because I haven't been working on my trees that much. Not even the last couple of weeks when I should have been busy repotting them as spring is definitely in the air. Unfortunately I've repotted very few, partly due to the fact that procrastination is one of my big weaknesses, but technology problems have played a big part too. I was unwilling to get my hands dirty while waiting for tech assistance that never arrived!

Just about the only time I've worked on my trees lately has been at workshops.

One of the trees I felt had to be repotted urgently was the fig truncheon cutting which I struggled to keep alive through a heatwave last summer. Two weeks ago it was just starting to get its first leaves so I took it to a club meeting where I could get some help lifting it out of the two pots it was living in.

I bought a few pots from the club's shop and quickly repotted the tree into one of them before the meeting started.

It's been sitting in the shade since then, looking reasonably happy, and I was planning to move it back into the sun in the next few days.

August 2019 - showing early spring growth

And then I made a discovery which forced me to change my plans.

Among the items I was packing for today's workshop were training pots for repotting some of my other trees. I was horrified to find that one of the larger pots I'd bought two weeks ago had no drainage holes. That brought the horrible realisation that the pot I'd planted my fig tree in might not have any holes either.

My fears were soon confirmed. My poor tree has spent the last two weeks in soggy soil. What's more once I removed it from the pot, I discovered that the soil was really smelly.

I've now moved the tree into a better pot with clean soil, but I'm very worried about the possibility of root rot. This tree may still be fat and ugly (though not as bad as when I first wrote about it) but it's not a tree I want to lose.

It's back in the shade for now, and I've been advised to water it with a fungicide (which I still have to buy) and hopefully that will help it to pull through. For now, however, I've got a few nervous weeks ahead of me.

You can see a full progression of this tree (including future updates) here.

How to Kill a Juniper

Browsing through the Reddit bonsai group there are always a lot of posts from newbies with their first tree, and that tree is often a Juniper. Sadly many are led to believe that it's okay to keep their Juniper indoors. The truth is that's the easiest way to kill it. The bad news is that Junipers stay green for months while they're dying, and by the time the owner realises their tree is sick, it's usually already long dead.

I was lucky. I've never made that particular mistake. But that's not to say I've never killed a Juniper.

I've already written a few posts about the Juniper Mint Julep I bought as a candidate for Reddit's nursery stock contest in March 2018.

As purchased - March 2018

Having seen many people on Reddit advising first time Juniper growers not to do too much work at once, I tried to be gentle with my tree and though I removed a lot of the top, I left a couple of unwanted low branches to avoid shocking the tree too much.

April 2018

It made it through the Southern hemisphere winter without any trouble.

My big mistake was taking it to a club meeting in September 2018. I didn't even plan for it to go on the table for critique, just to enquire from an expert whether it was safe to remove those low branches. Unfortunately some of the members had other ideas, and I came home with this:

September 2018

I was really disappointed with this new styling and felt it was no longer "my" tree. And I was extremely concerned about its survival. The suggestion that I repot it immediately sounded like a bad idea, and I decided against it.

Perhaps at that stage it still stood a chance of surviving, though it would have been a long time before it grew branches that I would  have been happy to work with. Unfortunately, when discussing the tree with another experienced grower a few weeks later, I was told it was okay to repot it, so I did. The root pruning involved was the last straw, and by December 2018 it had lost all its foliage, though I found signs of hope in the form of one tiny green bud growing from the section that was intended to be used as dead wood.

Signs of hope - December 2018

And my hopes were finally dashed when that bud died a few weeks ago.

If I ever buy another Juniper (unlikely), I'll definitely take my advice from Reddit and stick to the principle of one insult per season. Perhaps they can survive more, but there are bound to be problems along the way.

That was certainly the case with a Juniper I worked on when I attended a beginner's course back in 2007. The tree was pruned, wired and planted in a bonsai pot, all over the period of two days. It survived, but the top died and a makeover was required within months. It's been restyled a few times since then, but to this day I'm not happy with that tree and I'm determined to find it a new home one day. If I can get a little money for it, I'll probably spend it on another ficus!

Starting a Large Portulacaria Bonsai from Nursery Stock

I never meant to buy anything.

When I stopped at the nursery about 10 days ago, I was just trying to burn a little time before meeting a friend at a nearby restaurant. I'm supposed to be cutting down on the number of trees in my collection, not adding more.

Everything started off well. The trident maples had decent bases, but they were about 10 feet tall with no low branches, so they were easy to ignore. And the small Portulacarias weren't the least bit tempting. I've already got a few and I tend to neglect them. So much so that I nearly lost one to root rot last year. I've reached the stage where I try not to buy anything unless it's a little bit special, like the variegated Portulacaria I bought in July.

But when I passed the big Portulacarias in another section of the nursery, everything changed. I'm not aware of ever seeing them that size before - well not unless they were growing in the ground anyway. Even so I nearly passed them by because the bags of soil they were planted in were so big that I felt sure I wouldn't be able to lift them. But I tried lifting one and was surprised to find that it was a lot lighter than it looked.

I couldn't buy it though. Not that day. I couldn't leave it standing in the car, visible for all the world to see, while I was at the restaurant.

It was three days before I was able to return. Luckily my chosen plant was still there because the others had much thinner trunks. Well all except one, and it turned out that I couldn't lift that one.

And so I came home with this huge plant which, in its bag, reached to just below my chin.

October 2018 - as purchased

I couldn't even contemplate putting it into a training pot until I'd removed all the excess growth.

October 2018 - after first rough pruning

At this stage all the branches on the left were in a straight line and I knew most of them would have to go, but I decided to leave my final selection until the tree was in a pot, planted at the correct height. A wise decision because, by the time the highest roots were exposed, the tree appeared a couple of inches taller.

October 2018 - still waiting for its final cut

I didn't discover that until a few days later though. Given its size I decided to get some help with the root work at my club's meeting.

In addition to adding height to the tree, removing the top layer of soil also exposed a couple of branches with their own roots, giving me two extra (much smaller) plants for my money.

October 2018 - two branches with their own roots

Once the tree was safely potted, it was time for the final branch selection. I was happy to find that several club members agreed with my decision to reduce the height a little further. Once I'd cut back to my chosen leader, the right branch was perfectly positioned on the bend. After removing the handlebars and the low branch coming straight to the front, I was left with just two branches. For now.

October 2018 - after final pruning

Who knows what options may present themselves when new growth appears?

It's unfortunate that the higher branch is the thicker of the two, but hopefully if I let the thinner one grow and keep the thicker one short, it won't take too long to correct that fault.

One last photo, just to show the size of the tree:

October 2018 - soda can for size

In addition to the two branches with roots, I've kept a lot of cuttings. If they all root, I'll have a not-so-small forest of Portulacarias of various sizes growing in my bonsai area. Maybe in a year or so I'll be able to sell some of them and recover the cost of the parent tree.

Facing My Fears

Spring is my favourite time of the year. I loving seeing my trees coming out of dormancy and being transformed into a sea of green, with lots of fresh young leaves free from the blemishes that our summer hailstorms will eventually create.

But it's also a time I fear because I've never become totally comfortable when it comes to repotting trees - especially not when it comes to downsizing from a training pot to a proper bonsai pot. I think a part of that stems from a workshop I attended early in my bonsai days.

One of our club members brought along a tree which was in serious trouble. One side looked reasonably healthy but the other side was dying. On close inspection it was discovered that the trouble came from the roots. There was a large air pocket in the soil which prevented some of the roots from getting the moisture they required. I'm not sure what became of that tree but it's haunted me ever since.

I had big plans for this spring though, but things haven't quite gone to plan. August (still officially winter) got off to a really warm start and around the middle of the month I pruned this newly acquired nursery tree and moved it from its black bag into a training pot.

Ligustrum Ibota - August 2017

It's slowly showing signs of new growth but most of the new buds aren't where I hoped they'd be. In fact the thin branch on the left now has no foliage at all and I fear I may lose it. But more about this tree in another post - when I have something to work with. For now I'm playing a waiting game.

Shortly after I potted this tree we were hit by a cold snap, so I decided to wait for the weather to warm up a bit before I continued my repotting efforts.

And then, just as the weather warmed up again, our landline and internet connection suddenly stopped working.

Okay, I hear you thinking, loss of technology should be the perfect opportunity to give my trees my full attention. But no, as I battled to get the problem fixed, I seemed to be constantly sitting at home waiting for repairmen who never arrived. I was afraid to get my hands dirty in case the doorbell rang at an inopportune moment. And every time the problem was fixed, I found myself playing catch-up with my online activities, so I still had little time for my trees. As a result, to date I've only managed to repot a handful of trees and, with most of my deciduous trees now covered in leaves, I fear many of those I'd planned to work on will be remaining in the same soil for another year.

One of the trees that topped my list of priorities however was one of my favourites - a little Ficus Natalensis which has appeared in several of my earlier posts. As I want to display this one at our club's annual show in mid-October it was essential that I get it into a bonsai pot as soon as possible. So a few days ago I finally plucked up the courage to move it.

Ficus Natalensis in training pot - September 2017

For the most part I'm fairly comfortable doing root work on ficuses, but once I got started on this one I became really nervous at the realisation of just how much root I had to remove before I could squeeze it into its tiny new home. And when I thought I was done it didn't look right. The tree wasn't quite straight in the pot and it seemed to be leaning slightly backwards. So I removed it from the pot and started over. It was only at the end of my second attempt that I realised it was sitting too high in the pot, so out it came once more. Getting it to the right level required yet more root pruning and I'm a bit concerned about some of the cuts I made.

While working on it I also removed most of the foliage in the hope of encouraging it to produce nice small leaves for the show.

Ficus Natalensis in bonsai pot - one day later

Since this photo was taken some of the remaining leaves have turned yellow and dropped off but thankfully the new buds are still looking healthy. Still, I won't be comfortable until it shows signs of new growth. Hopefully my concerns will prove to be unfounded, but it's in my nature to worry.

Look before you leap

One of the benefits of attending bonsai workshops is that it gives me the opportunity to exchange cuttings with my fellow club members. Lately I've been giving away a lot more than I've been taking though as I really don't have enough space for more trees. However sometimes I still get tempted.

The tree I'm discussing today is a Ficus which started out life as a large cutting I acquired at a workshop two years ago.

I don't remember the tree it came from, nor whether the cutting was a branch or the original apex, but clearly it was not the first major cut that the owner had made because there was a big bulging piece of deadwood near the base where a large branch had previously been removed. I chose to ignore that though because to cut that section off would have given me a much thinner tree.

So I planted it in a small pot of bonsai soil and waited for it to develop roots. After that I simply fed and watered it and did nothing further until today. I'm pretty sure that when I first planted it, the trunk was upright, but at some stage it had toppled over and was now growing pretty close to horizontal.

Ficus before

The first thing I did was remove the deadwood bulge.

Dead wood where old branch was removed

In its place there is now a deep hollow which I hope will become a feature on the trunk in time to come.

Hollow where dead wood has been removed - before sealing

Once that was done, I had planned to do a little pruning, but when I looked at the horrible angle that the tree had adopted, I realised that I could not get away with propping the pot up to view the trunk at a suitable angle. I would have to repot it first.

I'm really glad I did.

When I started combing out the roots I discovered that there was a substantial piece of trunk buried below the level of the soil. Fortunately most of the roots were right at the bottom and, after removing the two thin roots and potting the tree higher in the pot, it now has a much fatter base. As it's now in a wider pot, it also has lots of space to develop more roots, and hopefully good nebari.

When the repotting was finally done I decided to give it a quick haircut to promote back-budding.

Ficus after repotting and minor pruning

I'll leave major styling decisions until later, but suspect I may reduce the height of the tree to where the arrow is in this photo.

Arrow shows possible future chop

I'm so glad I didn't rush into anything here because, had I gone ahead with pruning before I repotted the tree, I may have cut off something that I'd have regretted later.

Two Neglected Ficuses

One of the problems with having too many trees is that I don't have time to give all of them the attention they need. As a result some of my trees are developing nicely while others are left to grow wild, and all they usually get from me is water and a little fertilizer. Grown in optimal conditions this allows them to develop fatter trunks so that, when I finally find time to work on them, they will make better bonsai than they would have if I'd started styling them too soon.

Unfortunately these two trees - two young Ficus Natalensis which I grew from cuttings - have never been given optimal conditions.

Two neglected ficuses - before

They've been living tucked away at the back of my greenhouse behind other trees and have been deprived of adequate light. As a result, when I pulled them out of the greenhouse I found a few dead branches. I'm not too concerned about those though as I've still got plenty of branches to work with, and after a heavy pruning they're sure to give me more.

A bigger concern is that they've been in their pots for far too long and have masses of thick roots growing in circles around the edge of their pots.

Overgrown roots

These roots are invasive too and, aided by the humid environment of my greenhouse, the larger tree sent its roots looking for more space. One root was tightly lodged inside the other tree's pot and I was forced to cut it before I could start work on repotting them. Another had invaded a pot occupied by a less vigorous tree, but that one came out without much effort.

Due to time constraints I've only been able to work on the smaller tree so far. I removed the heavy roots growing above the soil and reduced the root mass inside the pot, cutting back the long thick roots and keeping the finer ones, before repotting it into a wider but shallower pot.

Repotted and tidied up

As the top section was far too long and straight, I cut back to a suitable bend which makes it look in better proportion.

After pruning

For now it will be allowed to grow wild to see what new options it offers me. At a later stage I might reduce the height further. I'd also like some lower branches to fatten up the base of the trunk and give me better taper. Hopefully my tree will cooperate.

Note: I don't usually keep my trees in saucers, but use them when I bring the trees inside to photograph as I don't want them wetting the furniture. Drainage is important and saucers full of water will quickly lead to root rot.