For the love of Prunus mume...

[SeanS]

Ume layer separated. It had started to yellow quite a bit so I decided it was time to separate. Once separated I realised the yellowing was probably due to the pot being filled with roots and sucking almost all of the moisture out of the soil! I was watering the layer every day, sometimes twice, and the soil was pretty dry when I separated this afternoon.



The mother tree. I’ll be digging it up this coming winter.

 

[Pitoon]

Ume layer separated. It had started to yellow quite a bit so I decided it was time to separate. Once separated I realised the yellowing was probably due to the pot being filled with roots and sucking almost all of the moisture out of the soil! I was watering the layer every day, sometimes twice, and the soil was pretty dry when I separated this afternoon.

View attachment 581212View attachment 581213View attachment 581214View attachment 581215

The mother tree. I’ll be digging it up this coming winter.

View attachment 581216View attachment 581217View attachment 581218

You may need to trim that tree down some, now being seperated from the mother tree do you think you have enough roots to sustain the top.

 

[SeanS]

You may need to trim that tree down some, now being seperated from the mother tree do you think you have enough roots to sustain the top.

I already did, it was close to 2m (6’) tall while on the tree! I basically filled a garbage bag with what I lopped off

 

[JoeR]

Ume layer separated. It had started to yellow quite a bit so I decided it was time to separate. Once separated I realised the yellowing was probably due to the pot being filled with roots and sucking almost all of the moisture out of the soil! I was watering the layer every day, sometimes twice, and the soil was pretty dry when I separated this afternoon.

View attachment 581212View attachment 581213View attachment 581214View attachment 581215

The mother tree. I’ll be digging it up this coming winter.

View attachment 581216View attachment 581217View attachment 581218

I was reading on evergreengardenworks about how he, despite the common practice of avoiding this, will immediately start fertilizing cuttings (and likely airlayers) even with freshly grown roots. No direct experience here, but it would interesting to see if it helps it recover from yellowing leaves.

Fertilizing your Bonsai

I look forward to seeing the mother tree progress

 

[SeanS]

I was reading on evergreengardenworks about how he, despite the common practice of avoiding this, will immediately start fertilizing cuttings (and likely airlayers) even with freshly grown roots. No direct experience here, but it would interesting to see if it helps it recover from yellowing leaves.

Fertilizing your Bonsai

I look forward to seeing the mother tree progress

I’ll post updates in my dedicated Ume thread when I have anything to share

 

[SeanS]

You may need to trim that tree down some, now being seperated from the mother tree do you think you have enough roots to sustain the top.

@Pitoon this Ume layer seems to have dropped all of the leaves it felt it needed to and is growing new roots like crazy. It’s been raining almost non-stop for the past 6 days and there are loads of adventurous little roots growing up into the wet debris on the soil surface

 

[SeanS]

@Pitoon this Ume layer seems to have dropped all of the leaves it felt it needed to and is growing new roots like crazy. It’s been raining almost non-stop for the past 6 days and there are loads of adventurous little roots growing up into the wet debris on the soil surface

View attachment 584122View attachment 584123

Layer doing just fine. Not super green but looking good. Flower buds plumping up all over the tree for next spring, and a single random blossom. I’ve had JM layers also produce a few flowers after separation likely as a survival response

 

[SeanS]

Couple of full size Ume in my local botanical garden. Studied the branching for bonsai inspiration. I enjoyed the random downward growing branches that sporadically break the convention of the rest of the branching and then exhibit strongly upward growing twigs on the ends.