Repot California Junipers

bonsaial1

Today I started some repotting. The temps have been very cold here for the past three weeks as has been in much of the Nation. The weather is much more stable now and the frost danger is pretty much behind us for the year here in the valley. These three junipers were transplanted today to make room and free up the tubs they are in for this years digging of junipers. These are huge tubs and I have only a limited number of them. They are 20 gallon nursery containers and they are very good for useing to acclimate the junipers to the Fresno Heat.

I was very pleased when I unpotted the junipers and seen the amount of root growth I had achieved in one year. Mind you these junipers go into the potting container after digging with no fiberous roots at all. The root system is mostly comprised of what would be the secondary rooting from the main anchorage roots. The abscense of fiberous roots is what makes these junipers tricky for some to collect.

I plant mine in 50/50 sand and 3/8 lava. I get very good rootage growing in this medium, and it is very much like the soil they are used to growing in. There is a lot pof clay in Mojave and one of the junipers had a very hard ball of it encasing one of the junipers. I was not able to remove as much of the field soil as I wanted upon collection and it did show up with a reduced amout of foliage growth compared to the other two. Upon this trasplant I was able to remove all the clay field soil and am sure that I will get a much denser canopy forming this year. I hope so because it is the best trunk of the bunch.

I purchased the two pots at the BIB show from Jim Gremel. They are training pots and are not of the quality to be used as a final pot. They are very good as training pots and are cheaper than the same size mica pot. These are very large pots and are pretty heavy. The third tree was smaller and a pot was chosen that I had in my pot collection in the garage.

The trees will be posted in Students of Bonsai for virtuals or anything that one would wish to try with these. They are unstyled and have been just growing for the past year. The large upright juniper did undergo some ameture carving and has seen some wire. The tree was lacking in foliage growth due to the clay and so has really never been styled properly.

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Dav4

Very nice. Just wondering and unable to tell from the pics, is most of the new root growth arising from the original woody rootage or is it coming straight out of the trunk, or a combination of the two? Thanks and good luck,


Dave

bonsaial1

Roots that are retained at the time of excavation nearly always die. These can sometimes be as large as 3/8 inch across. They turn dark black and shrival. The good new roots come from the ends of the fresh cuts on the larger roots and from the trunk. It is amazing how these trees do this, almost acting like huge cuttings. If you tried to do this with a huge juniper dug from a landscape I don't think it would work as well. What makes these work so well is indeed a mystery.

Al

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Dav4

I assume California junipers are quite drought tolerant...this must play a role in their ability to replace an entire root system without the foliage dessicating and dying. I'm going to be repotting a Rocky Mt juniper this spring that needs its root system completely redone. I'm hoping the same holds true for my tree, as well. Thanks for sharing,


Dave