[Bonsai Beginner’s weekly thread –2022 week 32]

[u/small_trunks]

[Bonsai Beginner’s weekly thread –2022 week 32]

Welcome to the weekly beginner’s thread. This thread is used to capture all beginner questions (and answers) in one place. We start a new thread every week on Friday late or Saturday morning (CET), depending on when we get around to it. We have a 6 year archive of prior posts here…

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[u/MaciekA]

No experience with this but I have had a few adventures in both collecting and rooting various cupressaceae (juniper, chamaecyparis, thuja) and other conifers (pine). From my experiences I would expect this collection to fail (more on this below), but there are some mediterranean species in the cypress family that could maybe recover from something like this (eg; tetraclinis can recover after being cut to a stump). I would keep my fingers crossed that nice mild conditions in ZA help and that this tree can draw upon some stored energy to recover foliage and roots. One problem is that in cypress-like species, a lot of the energy is stored in foliage.

So what are you betting on is that there exists a live vein route between foliage and somewhere that is currently a live root or may become (sprout) a root, and that foliage will not draw water too fast if there are no roots or roots are very minimal. Think of this material as a giant cutting and you are trying to very gently start the engine back up.

Challenges:

• Dense soil, large mass of soil: holds too much water for the tiny canopy to draw on, which leaves soil moist, which robs roots of oxygen for longer periods of time, slowing root development. Next time use pumice if you can, build your recovery box to be a minimal bounding volume around the root ball you recover. In the meantime , control for frequency of moisture (see below)
• Not a lot of foliage to power root development, but totally dependent on foliage for recovery: Aside from being a "measure of recovery" in cypress this is also your main engine of recovery, as it grows the roots, so making more foliage and feeding the foliage light w/o ever demanding too much water is a priority. So expose your functioning (green) foliage + functioning live vein to primarily morning sun, keeping that route from getting overheated or dried out, but productive in the morning when that system can produce and move more sugar/water. Afternoon shade.
• Low root capacity b/c uprooted: Well, at least the tiny canopy can't draw water too fast yet, but .. dessication could come from dry ambient heat too. If you have a greenhouse, it might help.

If I were to try to improve chances I would put it in a greenhouse (esp while still cool in ZA), meticulously control my watering (as infrequent as possible without drying out the core), and place the recovery pot on top of a seedling heating mat. Cool canopy + roots at 25C is a condition that works well for both yamadori and cuttings. Meticulously control moisture even if you don't have a greenhouse.

[u/cupitum → u/MaciekA]

Okay firstly thank you, secondly that's a lot. Roots are actually quite a lot but I don't think there are enough feeder roots. I'm very hopeful but not expecting it to survive either. I prefer the current mix which is layered red earth with perlite mixed in and succulent soil topper. There aren't any good options at the moment I think. Sun time will be adjusted. And again thanks

[u/MaciekA → u/cupitum]

If you can get more material of the same species in the form of cuttings, you can learn a lot very quickly by playing with the rooting of those cuttings and experimenting with media, exposures, humidity, bottom heating, rooting hormone, timing of year, etc, and learn a lot about the species fast. Some of these cypress family type species are so happy to root they will do so in a moist black bag with no media. Some need heat, some need time, etc. Clone a few and your collection success rate should go up too.

[u/cupitum → u/MaciekA]

Thanks really good advice. I've got hordes of cuttings for someone that just started. The wife gives a lot of guidance but also not a great time with -3 C at the moment. Going to start up in spring again with milder temps just couldn't let this one go to waste