Two day before the Trophy we, @Gerryman and I, had a workshop led by Ryan Neil. Together with 6 other guys we styled our yamadori material bought from Danny Use at Ginkgo Bonsai Center.
The morning started with a short discussion about each tree. Design, strength/weakness.
After we each had selected our best front/line Ryan helped set the first branch. That meant splitting branches and some raffia. I was very glad I rewatched the highlights of the raffia stream that morning at 08:00.
It resulted in two beautifull trees! We are very proud of our work and we like to sincerely thanks Ryan for his work.
As well as Troy and Lime for the conversations we had the day after and at the Trophy.
The day after Ryan gave a small lecture about repotting a tree at an angle. This led to the following work the get the trees secured in their angles for proper watering.
First the pots needed to get drainage and a pot to angle them in. Added with screens and pumice it is not let to grow.
I have a juniper that I repotted at a steep angle (one pot only) but the double pot and screen is a great solution. Are you trying to eventually get the tree into a horizontal pot, or are you planning to use some kind of vertical rock?
@Forestcat The reasoning behind the ‘pot-in-pot’ is because of recovery. Both trees have had alot of wiring done and some branchsplitting. So working the roots aswell would have been to much. Only loose soil on the top was removed, no roots were removed.
We let them grow good this year, remove wire when it bites in and thats it (ofc heavy fertilization).
Next year they will be potted in a ‘normal’ pot:) We both picked one out together with Ryan, so the esthetics should be perfect!
So, another bit of time later. We’ve had growth, but not substantial. I dared not repot, but I did lower the soilline to let water and fertilizer in easier. And it was very easy, so I had the luck to expose the base.
There is a big root behind there, which I will need to manicure.
Last night we were doing some repotting. The plan was to lower the soilline of the other sabina. When removing some soil we quickly noticed that is was all fieldsoil and very little roots.
After removing a part the tree was terribly loose in its container. So we decided to take the plunge and repot! It was quite a difficult one.
This is a WIP picture, and Im holding a piece or root which had to be cut.
When adjusting the foliage we were hanging back and serendipitously discovered another front, the side!! Everthing clicked and this the result for now:
