Hi,

So after tinkering with small trees, practicing re-potting, structural pruning, pinching, watering, fertilizing, even some shari and jin, I decided I should get a more long-term project tree. I went to the nursery and bought a procumbens with a relatively thick trunk (8 -10 cm diameter maybe?). It is rather big Juniper. I've only been doing some thinning and cleaning sporadically, as I want to go a bit slow with this one. cleaning I mean removing all that dead stuff underneath the foliage mass. And by thinning, I mean only minimal thinning so that the inner branches get some light and air, the tree is also potted on a 5 gal nursery plastic pot, and was a bit too deep, so the edges of the pot were pushing branches up applying unnecessary pressure and bending them them in a rather weird shape. I drilled some holes on the bottom of the plastic pot to improve drainage, and filled it with a bed of river rock and perlite to bring the whole tree up and improve drainage.

I didn't re-pot the tree as it is too late to do so. root pruning and changing the soil would probably kill the tree, so I left that untouched. The thing is, I really don't like the soil they use at the nursery, and I wanted to ask you, should I just leave it alone this whole year and it will do fine?. I thought about replacing the top soil, but there are too many roots, and I don't want to bother them.

I am planning on just taking care of this tree this year, and next year do some shaping but nothing too drastic at once, I want to go slow on this one. I do not want to put it on a bonsai pot until it is ready, maybe next year I can remove 1/3 of the root mass, and repot with better soil on a smaller pot and train it there?. I see it being on a Bonsai pot perhaps 7, or 10 years from now.

pictures?

I just need advice on the soil right now. Next year when I have time to start styling I'll post some pictures. There are two pictures on a post some of my bonsai trees by gekkie. They don't show enough though.

we cannot see the soil it is in so it is hard to advice.

I would say early summer is great for repotting junipers. Roots are awake, active. Do not trim the roots too much, and you should be fine; Ik have just repotted a tiny juniper last week.

Soil.. just your regular fast draining soil. I am just not one of the soil addicts. I am not convinced the soil is of great importance once it is very open, fast draining, your water frequently and add regular fertilizer. My trees all get the same mixture. Litterally, from the same tub. Some industrial lava-stype material. Catty litter and [pine bark. And some leftover pumince that I once threw in a big pot, and has now been mixed in. Oh yes. I recycle all my soil after repotting..

leatherback wrote: we cannot see the soil it is in so it is hard to advice.

I would say early summer is great for repotting junipers. Roots are awake, active. Do not trim the roots too much, and you should be fine; Ik have just repotted a tiny juniper last week.

Soil.. just your regular fast draining soil. I am just not one of the soil addicts. I am not convinced the soil is of great importance once it is very open, fast draining, your water frequently and add regular fertilizer. My trees all get the same mixture. Litterally, from the same tub. Some industrial lava-stype material. Catty litter and [pine bark. And some leftover pumince that I once threw in a big pot, and has now been mixed in. Oh yes. I recycle all my soil after repotting..

Hi leatherback. I'll post a picture when I have time. It is late spring here, early summer. I am not sure if it would be good to re-pot the tree now... do you advice me re-poting the tree? The soil is the regular stuff they use in nursery. Seems to have decent drainage, but it is mostly organic matter... I could perhaps do an easy re-pot, without root pruning just change most of the soil. What do you think?. My book on Junipers say that for my area after may, re-potting is a no no. Do you really recycle your soil? I read that dead roots can cause root rot. Interesting. Thanks for the help! teach me more

I repot junipers and pine (The latter I mainly kill, mind you) in may/june without any problems. Junipers love the warmer soil. But climates vary a lot. At the moment I get night-time condensation n the windows, due to the high humidity outside. It rains a few times a day with temps in the mid twenties (Celcius, that would be high 70-ies in F I presume). All in all.. Ideal climate for a recovering plant. You have to decide what you prefer. I would take a chance and take it out of the nursery soil, unless you can provide a good dry winter shelter. My plants stay in the full rain & snow most of the winter. So I want them out of the nursery soil.

Incidentally: The juniper I repotted has been in the nursery soil all winter, as I bought it last fall. In the fall I put it in a taller container, with lots of free-draining substrate. t has been suffering from lots of foliage die-back and fungus infections. When I repotted it, all the roots in the nursery soil had no growing tips: They were all in the free-draining material.

Yes I do. I try to get rid of obvious rubbish such as pieces of wire, leaves, roots etc. But then I re-use (Except from plants that have died !), I have a few large containers that I use to empty my pots in when repotting. I brush out the old substrate in a small container on the bench, which I empty in the large one below the bench afterwards. I have a large plastic tarp that I spread out on a concrete slab on sunny spring days, and I spread the substrate on there untill completely dry. Then I sift for dust and into two size classes, ready for the next season. I personally do not believe all that much in trees getting rootrot from anything else than just unhealthy circumstances (soggy soil, drying out too much and then keeping wet, freeze-thaw cycles)

Hey leatherback. Yesterday was perfect to repot the tree, as the soil wasn't wet. I tried to be very careful, and didn't prune the roots. I only used my fingers and a bamboo chopsticks to get most of the nursery soil out. I managed to untangle the roots and get most of the old soil out without losing roots. I repoted on a very dry mix, with a good base of river rock at the bottom of the pot. The tree had a very surprisingly dense and healthy root network. We will see how this goes.