Pruning and Re potting my Cedar Clump Bonsai, Part 2
Hi everyone nigel saunders here today i’m going to be repotting my fuja occidentalis and i’m going to be doing some landscape work i’ve been thinking of ideas for the landscaping for this tree and i’m going back to 2019 i joined the toronto bonsai society on a collection trip up north up in uh owen sound and there’s this cedar forest there a grove of cedars and they were so thick you couldn’t even walk through them there’s so many trees and the branches were so thick and i’m thinking of an idea like that where i’ve got a lot of fuji seedlings and i was thinking of planting them all around this main tree and kind of growing them so this will always be the largest tree in the forest but i want it so dense that it’s almost hard to see anything but trees i think that might look good for this this planting i also think i’ll change the front of this tree right now you’re kind of looking in and all the other trees are kind of flat on to the viewer so i was thinking of rotating it maybe more to this view kind of compacting these kind of pushing the main tree out front more so i think that would look pretty good and then i have all these little seedlings planted all the way around it i think that would make a nice canadian a slice of canadian forestry it would look quite neat and it would always remind me of that trip up to owen sound i’m not sure how this is going to look i have a lot of vertical trees in front of those those slanting trees and it’ll either look really nice or it’ll look really jumbled and confusing i’m not sure which but i think it’s worth a try to see how it’ll look with all those seedlings planted around it i’m going to go around and look for seedlings now there’s one here so there’s one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten so far maybe 11 12 here 13. they look like they’ll green up 13. oh and here’s another one 14 15 16. that may be about it so 16. that might be enough i think that’d look pretty good if it doesn’t look good i can always plant the cedars as a small forest or something i do want to get them out of the pots they’re in now kind of get them together in a group but yeah it might look good i can uh you know i want a view where i can always look in at the main trees here but i want them kind of planted densely so you don’t get a really clear view of what’s going on you’ve got to go in and figure it out that you know this is a clump and the rest are growing as a forest worth a try i’m going to try it out a lot of chinese pension has a poetic name for the planting and i think this one it reminds me of that trip up at owen sound and when i walked into that forest of cedars i was surrounded by cedars in every direction that’s all i could see was cedar trees and i was struck by how quiet it was it was just amazing that it was just dead silence it was it was really quite a feeling so i was thinking i could name this if it works out maybe call it the sound of silence and that’s uh i find that a lot if i go into a cedar grove it must be that all the leaves on the tree the scale-like foliage it just blocks out the sound because it just it’s so peaceful in a cedar forest it’s amazing i’ve placed some small cedars in front to kind of give you an idea of maybe what the composition will look like and i’m really liking it i think it’s it’s got a lot of promise i think having those little small cedars and kind of looking through them to see the main tree there yeah it’ll be very interesting i’ll show you a clip of the cedar forest that is inspiring me to do this planting see is as far as the eye can see just a little bit of sunlight filtering through the canopy wow just amazing so at the moment it’s really quiet in here it’s one of the quietest places i’ve been in in a long time all i can hear is the odd bird you know chirping in the background but it’s just dead silence in here it’s amazing feels really good it feels really peaceful it’s just amazing to hear nothing the sound of silence i guess i’m going to separate all the seedlings from the other pots now and i’ll uh i’ll put them in a bowl of water or something just to keep the roots moist until i get to arranging them in the final planting i think that the pot that the cedar is in now this oval-shaped pot is big enough for this planting at the moment and maybe as it grows in the future i may need you know a slightly bigger pot but i think it’s plenty i’ve got lots of room to plant all my little seedlings it’s got lots of depth to the pot the cedar forest was on the edge of the escarpment so it kind of was on a hill that went up and then the sheer face of the escarpment there so i may have the forest floor kind of step up so maybe the largest tree here will be higher and then surrounded by sort of steps or plateaus around it that might look good too so we’ll play around with that in the the final planting as i separate the seedlings here i can put them in this bucket of water that’ll keep the roots moist yeah these are starting to green up it’s good we’re getting some warmer weather now these ones are still kind of all of color i still kind of got their winter colors the one i pruned looks quite quite quite a nice bright green all right i’ll begin removing the seedlings this pot cracked over the winter i had it in the greenhouse but i guess it still froze again you know cheap quality pots they just not worth spending your money on okay well let’s get this out push it out of the pot here i go like that whoa look at all those roots amazing cedars love growing roots yeah that’s really good so i’ll rake those out all right here i go raking the roots out starting from the center and combing outwards so you can see some of the roots have a white tip on them so they’re just starting to get active not many of them but some there’s there’s another one you can see the white white tips on the roots so those roots are active and that’s probably because these trees were in the greenhouse the ones that are outside won’t be active like that you can see some of the winter colors on some of them which shows they’re not even close to growing yet so these ones i’ll have to be careful not to do too much root pruning but i will do some okay so there’s the root system on it good healthy flat radial root system so i’ll trim them back a little bit just getting rid of the longest ones [Music] and keeping them flat on the bottom so i’m just looking [Music] that should do right there so that can go in the water now all right and it goes i’ll get all the other little cedar separated from these pots and into the bucket of water i just thought i’d show you the second tree it was planted in pure perlite it’s got liverwort on the top here so i’ll get rid of all that and we’ll have a look at the root system how it developed in just pure perlite so here it is let’s just comb it out there’s a weed in there and i don’t know what age these are like that first seedling may have been older than this one i don’t know but you can see it’s got a good root system too no problems with that i’ll just do a little bit of root pruning on it getting rid of some of the roots pointing straight down trimming back some of the longer ones and that’s ready to go on the bucket of water the third tree is also planted in pure perlite and it’s it’s done really well a larger tree so yeah i think perlite’s pretty good for starting seedlings in it comes away from the roots really easily yeah that’s a good root system on that tree holy yeah really nice so i’ll just do a bit of pruning getting rid of some of the really long roots flattening the root base and that should be good for planting this little seedling is growing in the pot with my white pine my native white pine it may not be so easy to get out this white pine hasn’t been repotted in a while there it comes like that let’s have a look at the white pine roots wow you can see the micro riser fungi on it that white stuff that’s probably a pretty healthy root system this trunk was perfectly straight but the snow bent it down these are very flexible trees can i get the little fuja seedling out of here okay that’s it so i have a bit of root with it that should be enough to keep it alive so i’m going to put it back in the colander this will need repotting this year for sure and i’ll have to put that on the list so back in the colander and i’ll just fill in a bit of soil where i dug it out there the next group of cedar seedlings are in amongst these maples and these maples they’re seedlings from one of the largest maples i’ve ever seen had a huge diameter trunk i’ll try and dig up some pictures of it to show you the parent tree here’s a look at the parent tree of the little seedlings and it may not look big but when you get up to it there’s my foot it’s a big tree it’s really big there’s a look up at it yeah a giant maple just beautiful here’s a look at the tree from the distance you can see how large it really is on the branches you can see the maple flowers and that’ll be followed by keys and leaves so i’ve got to get the cedars out of here so let me see if i can do that i’ll just have to comb away here a lot of these little cedar seedlings just planted themselves naturally there’s one year the my cedar hedge had a lot of cones on it or seed pods or whatever they’re called and they flew all over the place and planted themselves in some of the bonsai containers so i ended up with a lot of little seedlings growing in other pots which is all right by me funny how some of these maples they start off as little tiny seedlings and one day you realize hey they’re kind of getting getting a bit thicker starting to look like trees and that’s kind of the stage these are getting out there kind of get into more of a tree size now so again the cedar roots are intertwined with the maples in here making it very difficult to separate them i’m thinking while i have these maples out of the pot i might as well repot those too i uh they’ve been in this pot a long time and the roots are really dense in here they definitely need repotting this root system is just super dense in here i’ve been getting the edge of my root break and trying to separate roots and yeah a really really fine root system there goes a drainage screen combination of combing and using the edge of my root rake the end of my root break and hopefully i can get these separated the cedar is almost loose there i’m just trying to get in and find the root base of it i have a feeling that this planting of the cedar force is going to take a little longer than two parts i didn’t anticipate so much trouble getting these cedar separated okay i’m going to try pulling this out i’m trying to get as much root as i can it’s really tangled in here hate doing this but there’s just no other way it’s so tangled in there okay well i got enough roots that’ll live so i can go in the water when you’re planting forests little seedlings are very important to have to have that variety of size in your forest you want some mature trees and some very young ones and that’s what makes your forest come to life i mean that righteous sizes this is pretty all ready to come out there’s a big maple root around it that i’m going to feed the tree through here like that and then i’ll try breaking out the roots i’ve gotten a few more cedars out so i’m just going to try and get this little one out they’re so thin these they’re just very tiny little baby trees luckily the thuja roots are really really tough they’re like wire almost and not easily damaged by raking another couple of cedars here come on that one came out nicely look at all the roots on that one that’s awesome originally in this pot there was a lot more seedlings but only the strong survived so now i’ve got some good trees here i can make a small clump of maples [Music] and then eventually they may become specimen trees on their own maybe i’ll try washing the roots all right i i’ve washed the roots so it’s still not coming apart very easy i’m just gonna cut i don’t know what’s holding together probably some big roots down there you can see this tree you know this root is thicker than the tree trunk so i’ll get them separated with a little bit of cutting still doesn’t want to come apart there it comes okay there’s one tree separated get rid of these roots here i’m not going to use these roots anyway they’re big thick roots another one separated another one and the last one i’ve washed the root system on the maples and they were just growing in a pot under tray that i put some holes in not a very dignified pot so i’m going to look around and see if i can find a decent training pot for this little group of maples the only pot i could find that was a kind of a good size is this aluminum baking pan pot that i added feet to i think i had a pine in it that died um so i’m gonna plant the maples in here and see how they do i’ve got the pot cleaned out so i’ll put the drainage screen in just like that i’ll put a base layer of soil in the bottom of the pot and then i’ll prune up the roots and get the trees planted the soil is half perlite and half safety’s orb now it’s time to do the root pruning i’ll start with the largest tree and it’s kind of got a lot of different layers i’m going to take off that highest root there so that will come off bring it in here like that there’s a few other routes higher up here that have to come off trying to establish a route plane down lower trying to i think that one’s too high also this one is too thick so i’m going to cut it back quite a bit and i’m going to cut it on an angle it’s kind of flat so i’m going to cut it on an angle so hopefully someday it’ll heal itself and blend in with the rest of the root system here i go get in here like this like that so you can see the kind of flows down into the soil oh there’s an ugly part off to this side it has to get pruned away like that and i think the breasts can stay i uh i think that’s it can’t do a whole lot you know yet so i’m going to put the tallest tree kind of up front like this i’m just trying to pick a nice side to the tree that’s not bad right there okay right here lots of room for the roots to grow so it’ll go in right here so i’ll add some soil around it and hopefully it will live and grow and start to develop a nice root system eventually looks quite nice there a fifth tree would be nice but i don’t have one here’s a look at the maple planting now it would be nice if i had a fifth tree in there but i don’t so maybe i can collect some seeds from that parent tree and keep you know maybe plant a few more in here maybe seven trees total uh i do have some other red maples but they’re not from the same parent tree so i don’t want to mix them up in this planting i kind of like having them up on the hill and then it tapers away here if i had a rock here i could kind of separate it like a cliff edge or something or you know make a bit of a hill i’ll look around and see what i have i do have some flat rocks here that might be good i’ll try building it up as sort of a a cliff edge i want this one maybe i don’t know maybe that’s too big maybe that one oh i don’t know that’s kind of thick too maybe just a small one i don’t know be this one underneath like that i could break this into smaller pieces and kind of put them around maybe i’ll do that that works now those smaller pieces can kind of make my cliff i’ll put some sand in this side to kind of represent water see how it looks give it all a watering and then i can plant the moss this will level up the sand here maybe so i’m not sure if these maples will live it’s hard to say i took a lot of roots off them if they do it’ll be a cool planting if they don’t maybe we’ll use this idea or this planting on something else okay i’m ready to plant the moss so this moss is quite dry but when i water it it’ll uh regain its health and green up i’m just gonna add a bit of sand around the stones this is brown sand just to kind of make it look a little more natural put a bit up here some of the spots where there’s no moss just a slight sprinkling on the moss to kind of give it a more natural look so it’s not all just moss a bit of sand around the shore here yeah something like that okay i’ll give that a good watering now so i think that’s got it here’s a look at the maple penjing now so there’s the the land and the water [Music] it looks fairly effective the pot doesn’t suit it at all but you know this could be planted in a nice pot anytime in the future yeah so there’s our maple seedlings planted ready to enter their next phase of life as a bonsai sort of the intermediate phase in between seedlings and sort of pre bonsai i guess it’s starting to get dark out so the day is coming to an end and so is this part two of this video i uh got my maple seedlings repotted and we’ll be back to work on my fuji occidentalis clump style that’ll be turning into a forest so i hope you stay tuned for part three i’m nigel saunders thanks for joining me in the bonsai zone
