Repotting Your Bonsai Part 2
I’m now going to show you how we Repotting Bonsai some of our larger specimen trees the first part of the repotting video that i did was to show you some of the small indoor bonsai and some of the more popular size outdoor bonsai which was the dawn redwood now these two trees here which we have are the korean horn beam with very small leaves beautiful specimens and we will show you how we do it many of these trees that come from japan are usually under potted so this tree is rather under potted in my view i know the japanese like to use smaller pots than we would i think i would choose a part about this size because it is more appropriate for this tree and i’m sure it is going to be very very pot-bound so let’s look at each of these in turn and see what the roots are like so i’m just going to show the entire process this as you can see is about well over 60 centimeter i think it’s more like 70 centimeter uh size tree it’s a very very large tree with a lot of character beautiful trunk and lots of ramification now what’s we are going to show you is as we said the entire process so steve was just undone the wires holding the tree okay now what is the next step we’ll try and get the tree out of the pot let’s see if it can come out sometimes if it doesn’t come out we have to use a special tool to cut the edges of the pot this as we say is a serious looking tree okay i just have a close look at the roots i don’t think it is too pot bound because i think we potted it last year okay it’s not too pot bound but i’ll get steve to tease some of the roots out while we’re doing it we might as well do it okay now this one isn’t very potbound i think it’s because we did this last year but the exercise here is really to change the pot because i felt that the pot wasn’t quite appropriate we will look at the surface roots on nebari to see also if we need to improve it in any way so repotting time we should take advantage of what can be done to improve the surface roots everything’s so lush on the nursery that even the weeds grow well we will look at the underside as well to see if the roots are packed underneath i doubt whether it is usually trees of this size and age they only need to be repotted every four or five years even if they’re very healthy the trident maple is is the exception because tried maples are extremely vigorous but this repotting is really to choose another pot because i wasn’t very happy with this pot can you turn this underneath so i can see what this state of the roots are again not too potbound so that’s all right okay so here i am in our pot shop and just to give you some ideas to the size of our pot collection we have pots of every shape and size these are japanese tokoname pots these are very high quality yishing pots look at the drum pots we have mica pots we have plastic pots more chinese yiching pots more tokoname pots this is a quantity of pots we have we’ve got antique japanese pots so i don’t think you’ll see so many pots anywhere in the uk nowhere in the uk will see so many pots look at the stocker pots those are all the token army pots that i’ve been buying from the 1990s and up to 2007 and 2008 we used to bring a couple of containers every year and i don’t know where they all go these are the very high quality tokoname pots silver fox pots the bushy pots and we have antique pots as well see the size of those pots they’re over a meter 1.2 meter long oval forest group planting pots now i’m looking for preferably an oval pot about 50 centimeter long i brought a piece of wire this was the existing pot that size so i want something about another four or six inches longer that might do i like to mount the tree so i don’t have to have it that deep so there are many options of course when a customer buys a tree they have the privilege of changing the pot and of course we have so many pots they can do what they like i think this pot might do quite well a deep pot is also nice so i might try that one so it’s right so we’re going to look at the roots in detail so this is the roots teased out and you can see that there are a lot of crossing routes here and if i can just point out you see the roots should be going radially from the tree now this is crossing this way this is a force so we’ve got to cut that one off and anything which is crossing will take it off so this is the obvious fault so we get this root off so with a branch cutter we can get that root off anything else crossing will get it off a lot of people keep asking me oh how do you do nebari they love that word nebari japanese term for the surface roots all we are talking about is surface roots which radiate from the center and not criss-crossing even here there is a bit of crisscrossing going on here so that is not nice so that top one should really come out and this one also going that way that should come out so we’re going to get this one out and this one out so we’ve taken that crossing one out so we’ll return to this one and that one is going to come out so steve is going to use either branch cut or root cutter to cut them out so as the roots grow we always have to keep improving it and if the soil is beared over the roots you will get a lot of small roots growing and if you don’t keep check on it they become big roots and if there are ugly roots or roots in the wrong position it spoils the look of the surface roots of the nimbari so this is how we improved nebari every time you repot a tree you take the opportunity to improve the roots there are no shortcuts no being lazy if you want perfection you’ve got to work hard at it this is a really old tree look at it okay so we’ve done that we’ve got rid of that so this i don’t mind that’s okay this is okay this is okay and this is okay uh there’s a bit of ugly root there that can also come off that’s crossing over there that we can get rid of so you’ve got to really be critical so now we’ve dealt with those so we’ve got rid of that these are the fine roots if you don’t watch them they can become thick ugly roots that we can pin down some of these sticking up we can get rid of now let’s look at the other side if you turn the tree around i think there are some so on this side this radius the back of the tree because the tree leans that way but the trunk as you can see is very beautiful from this side as well now this side there are one or two falls if we see there is that root crossing there which is bad so you can cut that off to get that right cut that proud one off uh that’s not too bad that stumpy bit can come off and i think that one coming up from there i’m not sure if you need that so that one can be cut off as well see it’s coming off already so we get that off so that one come off and that one come off and we clean that up and that crossing one you see this one is crossing over we get that off these trees remind me of these ancient english oaks that grow in these public places in windsor great park richmond you get lots of these beautiful oak trees that have null trunks just like this so there we are we’ve cleaned up the surface so the roots are fairly nice that one there i think when we come to potting it we might get rid of it so now let’s try the tree in different pots to see what pot suits it best so i brought a selection of pots to see which of these pots might fit it i usually have a fairly good idea as to what suits it and what doesn’t suit it the pot from which the tree was taken out of is the one at the top there and it’s what we call a rounded corner rectangular it’s a cross between an oval and a rectangular pot so it’s fairly soft looking this is more of a rectangular pot with soft edges but not hard edges but it’s much deeper the one below is a micropot which is a drum pot and then this is a very high quality yi xing pot with a very unusual luster glaze and we will try each of these in turn so let’s bring the tree and try it against each of these pots if we put it in the cream pot turn it around because i don’t want the rusty side okay let’s see what it looks like in this one okay can you put it in the center now although the pot is only not more than an inch bigger than the old pot in which the tree was planted because it is slightly deeper if you put that pot against it makes quite a big difference see this pot is much shallower than the other one so just having it deeper makes that tree look slightly different can you twist the tree so that it’s more this way i think it’s too far to the right when you come to potting it it will may need to yeah it may need to have some of the roots cut it’s too far to the right okay now let’s try the next part choosing a pot is a very tricky thing you invariably have to use different pots or try different pots to get it absolutely right so that is nicer can you just twist it so that it’s at five degrees clockwise yeah like that see just the angle of planting makes a big difference okay that is quite nice let’s try the mica drum pot usually with my experience i can tell straight away what size pot is suitable can you just shift it a little bit to the left and of course if you’re watching the video you can make your own mind up i think for my money all those three pots that i chose are possible candidates for this tree but i don’t know i quite like the drum pot but i also like this one let’s ask steve what he thinks one on the left so did i okay put it in the one on the left and we’ll choose again because this tree has quite a thick trunk a deep pot suits it now let me just say a few words about the choice of pots there are no hard and fast rules as to how to choose the size and color of the pot of course this is although it’s a brown pot it’s got a very matte type of glaze to it and because the trunk is very thick you see how thick it is you can use a deep pot if you use the shallow pot it wouldn’t look quite right so the depth of the pot is dependent on the thickness of the trunk so if you have a thick trunk then you can use a deep pot if you use a very thin tree with a deep pot it wouldn’t look quite right so this looks quite right and the proportions are right and we always say that the longest dimension of the pot that means the length here is usually about two thirds sixty to seventy percent of the longest dimension of the tree so these are only what we call basic guidelines i don’t even like to call them rule of thumb or whatever otherwise you’ll start using rules for everything so and somehow the aesthetic sense or the sensibilities can tell you what is right and what is wrong just looking at that pot i think that is right so we will proceed to put it in this pot i can just mention something about how this tree was grown it must have been chopped there and then the next chop was done here and that has scarred the next chop was done there if i turn the tree around you can see so first chop was done there next chop was there next chop there next chop there and so on someone commented in one of my youtube videos they said all the best trees in japan which have good tape are never chopped i beg your pardon this gentleman probably doesn’t know how trees are grown so even the best trees are all done this way to get taper you have to keep progressively chopping the tree so this is how it’s done so we’re now going to pot it up and we will now show you the next stage of potting these spots i purchased from yishing about 20 years ago these are all what we call high quality pots and you see how large the drainage holes are and they’ve got four small what we call tying hole that one that one so there are four tying holes and this is for passing the wire through um and the use of these tie wires has only emerged in the last 30 or 40 years prior to that most pots just had drainage holes they never had tie tie holes so i’m now going to show you how we prepare that pot there you go so we are going to use that is i think two and a half mil wire you can use even three mil the heavier the tree we use a slightly thicker one for young trees we only use like one and a half or at most two millimeter wire but this is i think a three mil wire because it’s a heavy tree this is worth taking time to be meticulous in what you do so we are showing you in detail how we pot these what we call serious specimen trees we have trees which are much larger than this mind you and they’re very heavy to handle sometimes many of our trident maples require four men to lift this one is just a single man tree it’s not large by any means it’s a good practice to anchor the piece of mesh to the pot by spreading a piece of wire across it i’m usually lazy i don’t always do it because i i’m very careful how i place the soil so that mesh will never move there is no right and no wrong way as long as that works for you that’s fine okay we’ve now prepared the pot now i think it is worth putting a tiny layer a single layer of huge soil at the bottom because this is a deep pot so we want to encourage drainage so a little bit of huge and then our standard soil while steve is preparing the pot and the drainage layer i just mentioned a few tricks give you a few more trade secrets you notice that we use these cement mixing trays as a potting tray because it holds the soil in place doesn’t let it scatter i’ve used this for the last 30 40 years and we use these upturned mica pots you wonder why they are here because when i place it on the tray the micropot is absolutely level it is dead level so when i’ve potted a tree i place it on the pot and that gives me an idea as to whether the tree is level or not so that is how we do it this is the wire for tying the trees in the root hooks and these are all the implements we use for our repotting so this is a busy time for repotting we’ve been doing literally hundreds of trees every day hundreds because we have such a large stock of trees most of these trees you see here will be repotted at some stage so this is a very fine grade of huge and this is the size of very fine peas you know that frozen peas you buy so that’s enough that’s enough that’s perfect that’s the day and it’s barely not even half inches only one single layer i’ve mentioned before that i don’t always believe in using a drainage layer but for very expensive trees i don’t risk it so i use that you don’t have to but it is a safe precaution to do and you can use the japanese volcanic grit but we use hyuga because it’s a very light substance you can use pumice as well and of course our soil is very free draining look at it so that is fine so let’s place the tree in position oh yes a little bit of compost and then just a tiny little so the roots touch and then we put a little mound in the middle so that when we squash the tree there are no gaps right in the middle that’s a little trick that we’ve done for years always mound the center so that once we squash it down that mound will fill all this the soil now this tree has to be quite high we don’t want it to sit low so if we need to we may need to maybe a little more underneath i’ll just come around and have a look i don’t want to hide the beautiful surface roots i think we may need to raise it raise it about an inch this is where one has to be really meticulous no taking shortcuts if it doesn’t look right we have to do it again some more some more i like to mount my trees now the position in the pot is quite critical now because this branch is going that way i think we need to bring it more like that so when it came from japan or when it was repotted it wasn’t quite right so i’ve done like a 10 degree tilt over there and the tree is still slightly to the right which is fine i think it can go half an inch to the right just half an inch to the right you lost the position you need to do the 10 degree again okay we keep that position do you want to put soil first before you tie it first tie it first okay don’t lose that position don’t compress it either tying wire you can do it many many ways you can either do it side to side or you can crisscross it whatever i prefer not to cut the wire i’ll show steve what i would prefer to do as well because we can then bring the wire together and tie it again front face okay then if you can take the wire across you can link these two i like to do that just to give it added and then tidy it back as well remember the wire doesn’t need to stay there forever once the tree is established you can remove the wire especially if you put it in exhibition you can you can remove the wire if it does show but this is just to steady the tree while it’s getting established so now that it’s done we just fill the soil and pack it in here we are we’ve done this tree repotted it and that’s what it looks like i think that pot is a big big difference if we can just put the previous pot in front of it please steve that original pot i’m just going to talk a little bit about this pot so you notice that the length of the two parts is almost the same but the appearance is quite quite different just that extra bit of depth has made all that difference so there you are just by repotting it of course we’ve given it a new stimulus because we’ve changed the soil and the nebari is going to be quite good i haven’t done any pruning yet i’ll wait a little longer and then i will take the top inch or saw of the tree and that’s how i maintain the ramification is go around the tree and take these tips off you can still see the original outline i will do half the tree and show you the difference where you get very coarse shoots we will take those out as well if there are any crossing one there’s a crossing shoot there so it’s not just doing topiary we are dealing with all these crossing shoots but the main thing is to maintain the outline any strong shoots we will also take off because the strong shoots are what we call the water shoots or the rogue shoots and they can take over the entire tree if you’re not careful they sometimes make new leaders from that this is the part that most people enjoy doing there’s one branch coming out there the korean horn beam is quite forgiving the zelkova serata japanese grey bark elm is a very difficult tree to maintain ramification because you get a lot of die back with those species with the sarcocerota and you can never maintain that ramification easily with zelkova now zelkova don’t get it mixed up with the chinese elm because the chinese elm in europe is referred to as zelkova which it really isn’t the chinese elm is ulmas we won’t talk about that that is done for import regulations to get over some of these import due difficulties i shouldn’t be saying that again this doesn’t take long and throughout the growing season i keep doing this i keep tipping it so that you don’t get extended long shoots if you have extended long shoots then what happens is that those long shoots will become very lanky and you don’t get any fine ramification the long shoots tend to dominate inward growing branches you don’t want the more you look the more you will find that there are faults so i’ve done this side you see the difference and then we’ll do this side anything hanging low i take off that’s hanging low i’ll take that off now this is the back side as i say if we home and you see the base of the tree the trunk is really beautiful unfortunately this is the back the tree leans the other way you see how the tree leans that way and some people will criticize you see the branch coming from the inside of the elbow now that’s perfectly all right technically speaking some people would regard that as a fault but it isn’t a fault because it suits the situation there and this first branch is really like three branches it’s got a real null character so this is a beautiful tree korean hornbeams are one of the most sought after trees i think probably more sought after than the japanese maple so i hope you’ve enjoyed watching this serious repotting next time we get any other trees which are large and complicated with a lot of roots we will show it to you because the more we show the more you will learn so i hope you’ve enjoyed this one [Music] you
