I haven’t had time to update the website lately so I am trying to catch up on a few posts. The repotting work was actually done on March 11 of this year. I know it is a little late for repotting season now, but maybe there might be some nuggets that you can use next year or maybe, like me, you just like to see how others do things. Either way, here it goes:
The last time that this tree was repotted was in February of 2017, so it was time to do it again before the roots get too out of hand. Bald cypress (BC) are rock-stars when it comes to growth and can fill a pot with roots in no time, especially when you have it in a small one. This isn’t really a grave concern if you grow them in a tub of water like I do but you still need to repot regularly to keep the roots from turning into a tangled mess. The pot that I have it in is actually a little small and I have been looking for the right one that is a little larger, but haven’t found one yet. The tree before I get started:
The last time that this tree was repotted was in February of 2017, so it was time to do it again before the roots get too out of hand. Bald cypress (BC) are rock-stars when it comes to growth and can fill a pot with roots in no time, especially when you have it in a small one. This isn’t really a grave concern if you grow them in a tub of water like I do but you still need to repot regularly to keep the roots from turning into a tangled mess. The pot that I have it in is actually a little small and I have been looking for the right one that is a little larger, but haven’t found one yet. The tree before I get started:
A quick look under the hood. As you can see, it has completely filled the pot with roots in the two years since the last repot. Since most of them are small roots it should not be too hard to comb them out.
It took about an hour or so to get them combed out and trimmed. After cutting the root mass roughly in half, I mainly focused on removing any large roots that were growing straight down as I wanted to get it positioned lower in the pot. I then just trimmed a couple of inches all the way around the edge of the roots to give it a little growing room.
The finished product, ready for another season’s growth. I did not have time to take pictures of the process of getting it settled back in the pot, the time got away from me and it was dark.
I am thinking of shortening the jin this year. The red line in the picture below is where I am thinking of reducing it to. What do you think?
In my opinion, BC would be the perfect tree for a beginner to use to learn repotting techniques as they are very forgiving in that you can actually do a lot of root work without really impacting how well the tree will grow.