Need a little help

sorce said:
Posting my best tree has nothing to do with the physics of that pot, repot, soil composition, place in San Diego, etc.

What is it meant to prove?
You will then post a better tree, or not, and just simply say that because you have better trees you understand this science better than I? why?

What is true, is....

It will just lead us down this path of understanding that I do in fact, have more experience with nursery plants than you do.

Since this is what I do to accomplish my bonsai goals.

Please, share your monthly budget.

Sorce
Click to expand...
Like I expected, a dodge.

Sorce, when I first started posting on this forum, no one took me seriously. No one believed I had a clue of what I was talking about. I got flamed unmercilessly.

Until I started posting my trees. And showed my work. Like I have on the “JWP with guy wires” thread. Follow that thread, and there can be no doubt I know how to wire.

Your pot making shows promise, and I think you should pursue that venture.

The stuff you do with trees, however... is sad, frankly. I’ve been messing with little trees in pots for 50 years. I teach bonsai classes. People bring me sick trees and I help them pull them back to health.

I’ve been there, and done that.

And I recognize bullshit when I see it. I think maybe you have convinced yourself that you are a Bolero Master. I think you actually believe your bullshit us true.

I don’t want to see your best tree because I can show you a better one. I KNOW I have better trees than you. I want to see your best tree because it will show just how good you actually are. If it’s decent, I’ll eat crow and admit that Sorce does have a clue. If it’s a turd, well, there it is.
 
It's about whether or not I have successfully converted nursery trees.

I do have healthy converts.

All but one I was ok with pushing to death are still alive since I started summer repotting. Of course, that was one piece of my personal puzzle.

Sorce
 
Adair M said:
You may be killing pines but drowning isn’t the reason. How do you think the nursery kept the tree before the OP purchased it? In the plastic pot outside. The soil will work for a couple years before it starts to break down and rot.
Click to expand...
No I think there is misunderstanding the layer is to keep from totally blocking the one hole in a terra cota pot for this situation still using nursery soil. Nursery container is different arrangement of drainage from side to bottom is designed for the soil mix used in most nursery industry. I commonly keep many trees developing in a nursery container- either because I don't have the time or grow pot, etc... But have you ever tried putting something solid over the drainage...It doesn't drain.
Appreciate the passion, but I disagree with my experience of growing in these containers. A water-logged pine/or most trees does drown. It's not about the rain at all, it's the fact that you are watering a solid mass of nursery soild and it's literally covering the one crappy hole that these pots have. Anaerobic.

BTW @Adair M Here is your own master Boon recommending the same. 🤣
 
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AppleBonsai said:
No I think there is misunderstanding the layer is to keep from totally blocking the one hole in a terra cota pot for this situation still using nursery soil. Nursery container is different arrangement of drainage from side to bottom is designed for the soil mix used in most nursery industry. I commonly keep many trees developing in a nursery container- either because I don't have the time or grow pot, etc... But have you ever tried putting something solid over the drainage...It doesn't drain.
Appreciate the passion, but I disagree with my experience of growing in these containers. A water-logged pine/or most trees does drown. It's not about the rain at all, it's the fact that you are watering a solid mass of nursery soild and it's literally covering the one crappy hole that these pots have. Anaerobic.

BTW @Adair M Here is your own master Boon recommending the same. 🤣
Click to expand...
Then I suppose my JWP here is doomed!

A9B83D17-1502-4ED6-956C-DE8EDB1EBD96.jpeg

It only has a single hole in the bottom!

Geez...
 
Adair M said:
Once again, you are preaching your imagination as if it were reality.
Click to expand...

In Sorce's imagination's defense, sometimes his imagination is way more entertaining than his reality is... at least it has been for me reading this thread.

I only use a "drainage layer" of large aggregate in larger landscape pots so i dont waste a ton of better bonsai soil. I dont see a reason to use it in a terracotta pot with a drainage hole in the bottom after a proper repot.

In the op's situation, a slip pot into a single holed terracotta pot could be an issue if the root ball blocks the only drainage hole but if he waters the tree, and water drains out Its obviously is not blocked and with standard watering practices shouldnt be a problem. If he waters and there isnt a good drainage out of the drainage hole, i would take a nice 3/4" drill bit and just drill up an inch or two into the drainage hole and clear some space.

With no pictures of the root ball prior to or during repot this is all a crap shoot to me and if anything is evidence that a lot of different things work for different people.
 
Orion_metalhead said:
In Sorce's imagination's defense, sometimes his imagination is way more entertaining than his reality is... at least it has been for me reading this thread.

I only use a "drainage layer" of large aggregate in larger landscape pots so i dont waste a ton of better bonsai soil. I dont see a reason to use it in a terracotta pot with a drainage hole in the bottom after a proper repot.

In the op's situation, a slip pot into a single holed terracotta pot could be an issue if the root ball blocks the only drainage hole but if he waters the tree, and water drains out Its obviously is not blocked and with standard watering practices shouldnt be a problem. If he waters and there isnt a good drainage out of the drainage hole, i would take a nice 3/4" drill bit and just drill up an inch or two into the drainage hole and clear some space.

With no pictures of the root ball prior to or during repot this is all a crap shoot to me and if anything is evidence that a lot of different things work for different people.
Click to expand...
Yes, we are fighting on if the hole is blocked or not instead of just asking the OP "Hey, does the water come out when you water."
 
The OP has repotted the tree into a pond basket.

The issue is moot.

My JWP, seeing as its in a single holed azalea pot, is doomed. By all accounts, it should have been dead already! I wonder why it’s still alive?
 
Treating or potting outdoor plants the same way you pot indoor plants doesn't make sense, so this continuing discussion doesn't have a solution.

This may have started out as a conversation about how bonsai are potted, but it has evolved to how traditional houseplants are potted/cared for. People still do it wrong because not many people read-up on it before they pot their one houseplant, they do like Mom did. Pots in a situation where the water needs to be confined by some means so it won't run out on the carpet. Pots out in the yard can be hosed down and excess water can drain out any which way. The two are different and require different methods.

One way of insuring that the plant doesn't get too much water (or, that it doesn't stay too wet, too long) is to provide a "drainage zone" separating the excess water from the soil. As usual, the solution to one problem just causes another, different problem. That solution causes the dry core problem. Another solution might be to provide a volume of water that soaks into a pot full of soil without draining out the bottom because the soil is still damp enough to uptake rather than shed liquid water. But, that takes planning and intelligence, like watering on a schedule a given amount before the whole mass is over dry. 15 to 20% of the volume of soil every 3 or 4, or 6, or however many days. That would be done on a calendar day basis. Every third day means every calendar day that is divisible by 3. It's a lot easier to look at a calendar and see if the date is divisible by the number of days that works for a given plant than trying to remember if you did it 2 or 4 days ago. Small pots have to be watered a lot differently than large pots, on a different schedule. It's easier to just pour water in and see it drain out and say, "I watered it". Checking the soil every so often leads to spotty results.

You're all missing the purpose of the terracotta pot: it wicks excess water so that it can evaporate sideways through the entire pot surface. As long as it doesn't have a "drainage material" zone it also allows the water to stand in the pot long enough to wet-out the whole rootball which is important to providing a usable interior growing medium immediately under the crown, often a dry zone where nothing can grow. The drier that zone, the longer water needs to sit in the pot before it runs out the drain. That is a common problem in houseplants where the pot is as wide as it is deep, and especially if there is a layer of "drainage" material at the bottom of the pot and it is sitting in a drainage tray or jardiniere. The water can run down the perimeter of the interior, wetting-out the circling roots without being absorbed into the dry interior core, so the drainage layer, which is intended to prevent the plant from sitting in a pool of water, does its job. So, instead of sitting in a pool of water long enough to wet-out the entire rootball, it causes the core of the rootball to get drier and drier and becomes a no-growth zone. A terracotta pot standing in water wicks it up the side and keeps the mass moist, longer. Plastic does not.
 
Adair M said:
The OP has repotted the tree into a pond basket.

The issue is moot.

My JWP, seeing as its in a single holed azalea pot, is doomed. By all accounts, it should have been dead already! I wonder why it’s still alive?
Click to expand...
Seriously, you don't comprehend... Next thread. ...Notice no response for your Master. Like I expected a dodge. 🤣 😆
 
Ok, so now the video of Boon repotting that Korean Hornbeam works.

That’s exactly how I described how to repot trees in the HBR tread, only since that’s a deciduous tree, he completely barerooted it.

He put a drainage layer of pumice down because it was a fairly deep pot. Did you hear him say if it’s not a deep pot you don’t have to do it?

But, also note he was using Boon Mix. He wasn’t slip potting a conifer from a plastic pot into a flower pot.

Look, I’m not saying that what the OP did is the proper way to repot a pine. He slip potted it out of the ugly plastic pot into something better looking. It looked to me to be the exact same shape. He didn’t mess with the roots. It would have been just fine. He’s now put it into a pond basket, so the issue is moot.
 
For the record, I always understood what @AppleBonsai was saying and believed it could be true.

Pond Basket?

That's a whole new series of problems we don't quite understand yet.

Dry Kill for sure now!

Popcorn!

Sorce
 
Pond baskets are great. I was growing other than pond plants in them about 30 years ago when I first started installing ponds. They were hard to find and very expensive at that time but we have more options now.
I have about 40 or so trees in them right now. Stellar growth and root development.
 
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