Hey forum,
I have 7 little bald cypress saplings that I recently acquired for a forest project. I want to spend a couple seasons letting them thicken and grow unabated as they’re basically twigs right now. they were crazy root bound in their 1 quart plastic pots, so I moved them up to #1 nursery pots that I had laying around. they’'re currently in a 50/50 mix of perlite and Sphagnum peat.
I’m wondering mostly with regards to watering if I should err more on the “too much” vs “too little” side, and if I made the right pot/soil choice for growth
1 Like
It sounds like a reasonable change of the pot, although I like to use pot that are wider than they are tall to start to get a spreading root system. I hope you at least loosened up the root balls. That will eliminate the formation of a solid block of roots the size of the quart container and keep the different parts of the root ball from drying at different rates. I have been using a 50/50 mix of pumice and partially decomposed bark. It your sphagnum is more like the long fiber moss and not the really fine peat moss I think it should work. I keep bald cypress moist to wet during the actual growing season in my climate which is fairly dry and warm during the summer.
1 Like
I did loosen up the root ball, did almost no trimming to them. I realized a little too late that I probably should have used a wider pot for them, live and learn I suppose.
The peat I’m using is the finer peat, I’ve read that they prefer slightly acidic soil so I figured that would be the way to go, will that cause drainage problems later do you think?
With that much pumice I doubt the finer peat will cause drainage issues in the near term. It might cause issues in the longer term. It will hold quite a bit of water once it is wetted. The issue is that it can be difficult to rewet if if dries out.