Leggy old Itoigawa

[AshleyMammal]

Bought this yesterday for a good price (<£100) at the Bonsai Boot sale (for our non-UK readers, a carboot sale is normally junk sold out of the back of a trunk, equivalent to a garage sale).

It's gotten away from the previous owner but there is some great foliage tight to the trunk up at the top:



My initial plans are to feed heavily this year and get it into a more suitable pot next year. Long-term, the tree will be built from that central foliage mass, rough ideas are to slowly jin almost all of the thick branches, wiring down slightly to avoid the horizontal. a slight planting angle change 15% ish to the right to help with movement/flow.

Happy to hear any comments/recommendations/virts/ideas.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

I don't think it's itoigawa, because even in bad conditions they don't grow such long strands of foliage. I think it's regular chinensis.
Care wise it shouldn't matter but it might be good to know; itoigawa is generally light green colored, if chinensis has the same color then there's a problem.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

The tree shows signs of being in bonsai culture for a while. It also shows signs of desperately needing a repot - and not just slip-potting it into a new pot with fresh soil around the outside. The nebari has that look of "no one has cleaned me out in 20 years" Once you get it healthy again you will need to take a critical look at those three main branches - which stick straight out from the trunk like telephone poles. I don't think you will want to keep any of them long-term... but you can't eliminate them until you get the tree much healthier and increase the amount of foliage on the upper trunk.

 

[bwaynef]

I would STRONGLY recommend your first order of business is a thorough repot. Everything else follows from there.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Agreed on the need for a repot. It shows a nice base, and would benefit from a pot about twice its size…get it strong and prune it back.

 

[AshleyMammal]

The trouble is, it has recently been repotted - albeit it not a through job - by the previous owner (a respected UK bonsai seller), whom had bought it as part of a old, neglected collection. I would assume the repotting was no more than a couple of weeks ago and he did say he'd worked a lot of old soil out of it - i'd assume trimmed back roots/foliage at the same time to make it presentable for sale.

My gut feel, given the recently repotted nature and recent trimming, is to wait a year and seeing how it responds in the fresh media however, i am well aware of the issues of roots and water not crossing compacted/non-compacted soil lines well and will just have to keep a real good eye on it.

I do really (really) appreciate the advice from such experienced people and if the general consensus is repot now I will heed the call.

 

[WNC Bonsai]

I can see the new soil towards the edges of the pot but the area around the nebari looks like old soil, so watch it carefully. I too would give it a year to recover assuming he did do a thorough root job.