Only second day of repotting here… three large and three small so far…
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There should be a word for the wrist pain from chopsticking the soil out of a rootball…
Maybe a different word for chopsticking soil into a repotted rootball…
Bonsai On!
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Maybe Bonsai-wrist?
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The bonsai burn is real
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And here i was thinking, i must be doing something wrong it hurts so much… 
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I had to do 7 big (10-25 gallon) initial nursery stock repots and the coldness of the soil took a toll on my hands. Although I did find the tip Ryan gave of not washing them until I got through for the day to he help.
Curious how others are using the app, when repotting are you taking pictures of the roots and adding them?
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Bonsai burn…
I wear heavy duty lab nitrile gloves. Saves my hands, and my right thumb… I have a bad habit of compressing around the pot edge… The rocks chew it up!
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Thought I had gout… Pretty painfull. Tested negative…
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Also, I need to move on my largest trees… Cant pick them up anymore. KILLING my lower back… My bonsai buddy up the street (75, retired fireman , two new knees…) still wrestles his out!
Man-up I guess…
K
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Feeling it too Kurt! I could come give you a hand moving stuff Tuesday lunch hour or end of day if you need help.
Jeffrey
Thanx Jeff! Everythig is mostly set up and perking…
Trying to prioritize repotting! 35 today. Did some trimming… Your welcome to stop in, though… ding me first!
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My wife suggested a WRIST BRACE for the Bonsai Burn problem. Will get one on monday…
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Everything went from gray to green-ish in two days!
One of my current repots… 25 yo Japanese larch forest…
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Lost four short trees due to heat two summers ago… stole two shorter trees from a taller forest… re-arranged this shorter forest into 5 (one hiding on left…). The taller forest now has 7…
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Planted >100 Siberian larch seeds today…
Planted 30 Sequioa seeds…
Had 6 blood orange seeds… They won’t survive outside here…
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Found a cone on one of the above larches. Ithad ~ 75 seeds. They will find a planter tomorrow…
Did several more small trees… untill I got rainedout!
Bonsai On!
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don’t buy nursery stock in 5 gallon pots of black dirt that have a snarl of “carrot” roots unless it is really cheap or will make really good bonsai. takes many hours to do those repots and you really don’t want many of them in a season. shouldn’t need to unless you are in a tree replacement mode. Trees already bonsai are generally a lot easier unless it wasn’t done well in the beginning. also stretch it over as long a time as possible. I started in January and won’t be done until May.
Spring bonsai is hard, when you decide to build a sunken greenhouse where your only option is to dig it by hand, actually it’s wheel barreled out so it’s a double dig…but hopefully winter bonsai becomes less hard
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Cool…The hole looks like a parallelapiped shape… (ie- not a rectangle…) Is that a French drain on the uphill side? (Not criticizing…!) Drainage!
I still have a 10x20 ft pile of dirt from my deck install…
Im avoiding doing a pond in my bonsai area…
If I had a sunken greenhouse, it would be a skating rink all winter… Although, here, we are setting on 60 feet of gravel. Soil drains real well. Thanx, glaciers…
My soil temps FINALLY went over 45F. Finally hit 65 F yesterday, warm enough to have your hands in soil… I have not counted what I still need to repot!
Bonsai On!
No it its not a french drain, my whole yard is pitched into a dry creek that then goes into my pond. I use the the rocks loosely but strategic stacked as “forever mulch” and to stop any erosion. Basically I have it in a few areas where I transplanted an entire White Pine forrest as the final step in the 5 year plan to eliminate the yard of Japanese knotweed I bought.
Just been chipping away at it, finally fewer people think I am less crazy now that its not a swamp full of bamboo!
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BTW those rocks are just some that came out of the new hole.8ftx22ft@3ft deep. I live in the northeast US where it’s about 5% organic matter then stone all the way down. It’s not even digging because that implies soil this is closer to chiseling 
good news is… no need for the gym this week I lifted 487,000lbs of earth …so I can grow more tiny trees although I told my wife it’s for veggies and fruit so I will put a tomato plant in at least!
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Sorry didn’t mean to steal the Thread
Bonsai on!
Thats what it was intended for… expressing your drugery…
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Here is my taller J. Larch forest…
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Both forests were overgrown and had dead trees… now they have room to grow and are more harmonius. Nothing like a wrestling match with a forest of roots…
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Here is a different flavor of Spring Bonsai being hard! Newley acquired nursery stock I spent all last year looking for and would be my most promising tree is not pushing. My other smaller Dawn Redwood has already been repotted and flushed out and the big one isn’t showing any signs of life. Would be the only one of 100+ trees that didn’t make winter, perhaps my excitement or anticipation killed it!
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My 20 yo Dawn redwood forest of 5 is just now pushing… the 3 yo of 5 is a mix bag; as is the above two J. larch forests… I have a 3yo J. Larch forest that is nicely green… Both larch forests have flowers… purple buds on top, large green dangly buds on the bottom…
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The local county conservation district pickup order of …5x10… bare root young trees comes next weekend. (And whatever else random trees they have to offer…) Bought 40 plastic bonsai pots for them. I intend to do 2 forests of 10 ish… Pines and local decideous wild type trees. Will take me 4 days to pot em up… I already have enough dawn redwoods, 15…
AND, I’m not the crazy one in the local club …
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I need to do fencing this summer, wife wants a pond and pathway in my bonsai area, small vegie garden, cut down two dead (small) landscape trees, chip 3 limb piles, new roof on the bonsai shed…
Bo sai On!
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28 repots over the last three weeks!!
I feel your pain!
But the weather finally broke and some trees went outside today!
Whoo hoo!!
Spring is here in the Northeast!
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Mostly, ALL of my trees stay outside. Decideous under a 30 yo kiwi arbour, evergreens in a cinderblock lean-to, which only gets covered with a tarp below 20F.
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My 10-ish indoor winter bonsais are mostly elephant bushes, Fukien tea tree and a ficus. The went out a week ago for one 65F day. That night went to 27. Back in… Last night was 27. Still waiting for the 40F threshold…
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I think I have permanent carpal tunnel pain in my right wrist… Damb you bonsai gods!
Bonsai On!