This is the third of our repotting videos and this particular tree which is a hinoki cypress i don’t know what particular variety it is because it’s got a slightly golden color but it’s a very healthy tree and i dare say it’s a very old tree this was grown by a customer for many many years and you can see how the roots have appeared on the surface not everyone likes the roots like this but i think it gives it a lot of character and sometimes you can tell just by looking at a tree that it will be very pot bound this customer bought one of our pots some years ago and potted it in this pot i think this pot is probably okay although it could do with a slightly longer pot now that the tree is much bigger but let’s look at the state of the pot so let’s see if we can get it out so i’ll ask steve to try and remove it from the pot do it there if you can okay now if you can just hold the tree up so you can see the the roots so you can see the roots are very very strong and the soil is not bad either it’s almost like garden mud but we will just tease the roots gently i think we can do it here and we will proceed to repot it so we try not to break too much root because we’re going to put it in a much larger pot so this is a situation where the soil i wouldn’t say is brilliant as i said earlier it’s almost like garden soil so we can improve the way the tree grows by putting it in slightly better compost so this lady has obviously done the repotting herself but we can improve on it and it’s strange that the growth is mainly on one side you see this side has got a lot of root and the other side hasn’t got much root at all but all the roots are healthy you can see how healthy the roots are you can see when the roots are healthy they’ve got the white tips and they’re not rotten so we’ll just loosen some more of the soil without breaking it and putting it in a slightly longer pot and we’re putting in a longer pot just for the aesthetics more than anything else so gently loosen it and we’re going to try to keep most of the roots we’re not going to cut the roots it’s important to let air into the root system and if the soil is very compact although it’s not clay it’s almost like a sandy loam sometimes trees which are bought from garden centers or other sources are planted in very heavy soil and heavy soil is not very good so we’re trying to keep those roots we’re not going to break those roots at all because we’re just going to change the saw so this is a situation where because we’re putting it in a bigger pot we’re not cutting the roots so don’t feel that you always have to cut the root you don’t always have to cut the root we’re just repotting the tree can you turn the root ball this way so i can have a look okay right so just loosen some salt from the base okay i’ll show you again when the tree is done if you hear pita pat on the roof it’s the rain which is falling on the greenhouse roof but let me begin again you may know my views about the choice of colors for pots by tradition evergreen trees are usually potted in unglazed pots of dull colored pots like these brown pots here the tree was originally planted in that pot which is a green greeny blue glazed pot it suited the tree but if you don’t like it you can use a brown pot i have my own views about the choice of colors for pots i believe that if you like a color use it but there is some logic as to why unglazed parts of the brown pots have been used with evergreen trees with evergreen trees because they look serene and calm with the green color using unglazed pots does help to make the tree look more serene and a sort of restrained elegance if we can use that term so that was the original size sizer pot although the size looked a bit small it’s not bad really it’s it could do with a slightly longer pot let’s see what these different options are that i have here so let’s try the drum pot first see that pot fits and that doesn’t look bad although it does give a little more room because it’s wrong for the tree to grow that size of pot is okay let me try a rectangular pot next although that pot is the same size of as the original pot it has more volume for new soil to be put in so i would be quite happy with that one i will now try another brown pot which is slightly larger so we’ll go on to the next one and see what it looks like now that is much larger than any of the other ones i think proportion wise this is quite a nice spot so i think i will go with this part the tree of course is leaning slightly to the left we need to put it more upright when we plant it and in case those of you who are not familiar with the pots i would just mention that that pot and that drum pot are what we call mica pots which is a very dense plastic and the one below is a ceramic pot if you stand from a distance would you know the difference between a mica pot and a ceramic pot the answer is no so for those of you who want to be you know more budget conscious using a micro pot there’s nothing wrong with it so it’s just snobbishness if you’re happy with the micropots they look just as good as ordinary pots so i will now ask steve to pot it up we tie the tree in i just put compost nothing special about it the main purpose was to show you how we get rid of the old soil which was more or less like garden mud so we’re going to pot it in our standard bonsai compost and i think either side is possible as a front and we’re going to show some of those surface roots so the next shot is of the tree being potted up now this particular mica pot you see how clever the design is they’ve had a series of holes at the bottom already made in the pot so you don’t have to use mesh i think that is really innovative so there you are pot designs do change so this is a nice spot and the drainage i think is quite adequate okay so we just put ordery soil there’s no need for a drainage layer as i said i’m not a great believer in a drainage layer so you can see how granular the soil is the drainage is going to be excellent just make sure that the tree stands vertical i usually try and stand it on this uh mica semi cascade pot if steve puts it there this is a little trick that i love doing you see because that is absolutely horizontal i can always make sure that the tree is horizontal when i pot it so that is the level i’m going to put it in i’m going to show the roots i think those tangle roots although they are crisscrossing their very old roots i don’t want to cut them off they can be made of feature so each to their own different people like different things so i’m going to show those exposed roots because in nature you do find trees growing like that in fact if you walk in the woods sometimes you trip on routes that are protruding out of the ground so that is the correct position sometimes you need to put a slight to the left or to the right i think the branch on the right is longer than the one on the left so i think that position is okay we can try there’s not much to it okay so that is the planting angle so we tie the tree in you notice we’ve used two two wires sometimes you can use one but two is safer there you go put it under the under the other root as well still that one yeah as many as possible okay just put the soil i’ve always said in some my other videos that when i repot i never remove all the soil i’ve seen in some japanese manuals that especially with satsuki azaleas by the way satsuki is this a very good time to repot in early spring we don’t do it now in the middle of summer after flowering which they do in japan in japan they have the rainy season so they can do it but some growers in japan have also told me that doing it in early spring and january and february is very good time for satsuki so just that’s just in passing so as i was saying i don’t like to remove all the soil because if you remove all the soil there’s a danger of breaking the roots and i think it does stress the tree so that is the way i prefer to do it i’m not saying it’s wrong but i find that doing it like this the way we do by keeping some of the soil is a much safer way of repotting so you can try different methods see what works for you but because we’ve tried so many different ways this will work way that works for us at this stage i don’t bother to put moss dressing to make it look nice if you want to put moss you can put moss to make it look right but if you just leave the soil as it is and just by constant watering the moss will grow so i’m not bothered about that and the other little thing that i have my own hang-ups about is i don’t cut these wires i don’t cut it because should you want to change the angle of the tree you it comes off easily we are not in a rush to do anything we’re not putting it in an exhibition so let’s put it back on the micropot to look at the angle again as i said this is not going to be put on an exhibition we’ve just done the repotting so we will just let the tree grow what we will now do i will get steve to water it in because watering is very important after you repot you should always water the tree in so we will get a watering can and water it so here we are this is how we water our trees in really soak it so that the water goes in and again if you have a protected environment like we have here we keep it in our unheated greenhouse and that’s the ideal environment if not covered with a plastic bag mind you this is now almost the middle of february so this is an ideal time to do it you can wait a little longer but we find that from mid-february to mid-march is the ideal time for potting most trees and for pines especially the japanese white pines and the junipers we can extend it into early april so march and april you can do your conifers but you can also do conifers now but do protect them you will need to give it a couple of waterings because one watering may not be sufficient so you may need to go do it again to let the water really penetrate into the tree so that is the tree done [Music] you
