What medium do you all pot newly collected trees in?

DJSend

I was luck enough to get the call this mornign that my folks were starting the new landscaping in their yard. The crew will be coming by tomorrow morning to dig out all the landscaping and the juniper i have been waiting for 5+ years to get ahold of is finally comming out! they said that they would get as many of the feeder roots out as possible BUT i need to know what you all would pot it in? should i use regular bonsai soil? Any help would be appriciated as i don't want to kill this off, awesome branch structure! P.S. I might be getting one of the yew's there too!

Cheers,
~Jay

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Repotter

A good all around soil is aged pine bark and turface of equal parts.
It seems to be a well accepted medium for this.

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malik

My friend has been collecting bonsai since he was 12 years old and he uses 80% turface and 20% peat moss. I bet the pine bark would be just as effective, but you might want to use a higher ratio of it.

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DJSend

Thanks, I did a bit of thread-searching and found pretty much the same info. I picked up a big tub and drilled the drainage holes in it last night. I'm planning on going soil searching tonight, which really means going to Menards/Home Depot or any nursery and getting the pine bark and turface. I'll post a pic as soon as i can! thanks again for the help. Would you also dust the roots with a rooting hormone? i thought that might do well to give it a kick to get some new roots out. Just a thought.

rockm

"Would you also dust the roots with a rooting hormone? i thought that might do well to give it a kick to get some new roots out. Just a thought."

Perish the thought Applying rooting hormone to roots will not stimulate new roots. It could even inhibit them. Rooting hormone acts as a "switch" ON NON-ROOT tissue to tell that tissue to make roots. Since roots are already roots, applying that hormone is beside the point. The tissue is already root tissue.

Plant in free draining, leaner mix and keep moist. Daily misting and shelter from wind are probably required, depending on how much root you get when the plants are upended.

DJSend

I'm anticipating the tree to be pretty light on roots... would you suggest keeping it in the garage for a few days to keep it out of the rain? Forcast here for the next 4 days is lows in the mid to high 30's and highs in the 60's but rain every day.

Ralph

If your soil drains freely rain should not be an issue. Some folks put a brick under one side, to assist with drainage.

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gregb

Rain is helpful to the collector because it reduces the shock of transplant and loss of moisture due to transpiration. If you are using a free draining soil you will never worry about overwatering. I use 100% pumice around 1/4" particle size for most of my collected trees and have had excellent results on species others find hard to transplant.

If you want to stimulate the tree to produce new roots, then use super phosphate on your drainage layer before you pot up. It promotes root growth, stronger roots and more vigorous budding and prolific new shoots. Helps with flowering and fruit production too. What more could you ask for

Mcspeed

Not to be argumentative, but I don't like the brick under the pot thing. If you think about where the drain holes are ( the bottom where gravity pulls the excess water ), and you tip the pot up on edge, the water is going to pool and NOT drain out. Everything about pots, and soils for bonsai is designed around providing drainage while the pots sits as thrown by the potter. Probably not an issue for a day or two, but I think it's potentially more harmful, than useful.

What Greg said too, less the super phosphate thing, and only because I have no experiance with it, but I would defer to his good judgement, and experiance.

Bill