Hackberry tree

[ducreamious]

Hello. I am pretty sure that this is a hackberry. I am in central Minnesota so it would be a northern variety. A year or two ago this tree (see pictures) was chopped down. A month ago, I was clearing out the area where it was growing, because it was full of volunteer trees like this one. I decided that it looked nice so I snatched it up it from the ground and put it in a pot with vegetable potting soil because that is currently all I have, and this tree isn’t very important to me. Unfortunately, this tree had essentially no fine roots near the trunk. Miraculously, this tree is sending out leaves and buds that are surprisingly low on the trunk. What do you guys think I should do?

 

[Empty Mountain]

I would concentrate on just keeping it alive and letting it grow and think about repotting it into bonsai substrate in the spring.

 

[ducreamious]

I would concentrate on just keeping it alive and letting it grow and think about repotting it into bonsai substrate in the spring.

Okay, thanks for the information.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Gosh, there is really no need to repot the tree until later in the development phase. It will only slow the development. Let her run for now and plan to do basic styling in place.

Get those roots really healthy, prune back the leaders only as needed. Wait until fall to do branch selection and set up sacrifices again. Plan to do this at least one more year.

A couple of the most frequent mistakes rookies make is transitioning a tree too early into bonsai media and repotting into a bonsai container way too early.

Keep us posted!

Cheers
DSD sends

 

[ducreamious]

Gosh, there is really no need to repot the tree until later in the development phase. It will only slow the development. Let her run for now and plan to do basic styling in place.

Get those roots really healthy, prune back the leaders only as needed. Wait until fall to do branch selection and set up sacrifices again. Plan to do this at least one more year.

A couple of the most frequent mistakes rookies make is transitioning a tree too early into bonsai media and repotting into a bonsai container way too early.

Keep us posted!

Cheers
DSD sends

This makes sense! One question though -When selecting branches to chop in fall, would you wait until after the leaves drop? Cheers.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Once the leaves drop is the best time to see what is there. This will allow one to make the best decision.

Cheers
DSD sends