Too Late to Repot?

[Pearcy001]

Hey all,

With life being quite busy at the moment jiggling a expanding young family and work, I've fallen well behind on my native repotting this season. Trying hard not to neglect the trees but it's becoming difficult. Normally I would have repotted them in the warmer summer months knowing I still had many weeks of heat up my sleeve.

I'm wondering if it's too late to be repotting natives now in Melbourne (Yarraville)? Day temps are becoming a high of low-mid twenties, and nights at low-mid teens.

While I'm aware they can be repotted any time they are actively growing (and from my experience they grow year round in spurts), I was just wanting to confirm if the consensus is that it's best to wait for warmer weather or safe to repot now?

Combination of either trees being reduced to fit into a bonsai pot, or a reduction for roots in a standard garden pot being to fit into a shallower orchid pot. Some trees are getting full of roots and ready for a repot, while others not so bad.

Native species still requiring a repot here are:

Melaleuca styphelioides
Melaleuca rhaphiophylla
Melaleuca cuticularis
Melaleuca micromera
Melaleuca huegelii
Melaleuca halmaturorum
Melaleuca tamariscina

Leptospermum laevigatum
Leptospermum flavescens cardwell
Leptospermum lanigerum
Leptospermum scoparium

Callistemon viminalis
Callistemon pallidus
Callistemon subulatus

Probably another couple of species I couldn't remember, but they're pretty similar mostly.

Looking forward to some opinions.

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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[Watto]

Putting on my "safety hat" I would say leave it to October to start. That said I don't see any problems unless there is a chance of an early frost in the next 3 months.
That means I don't really know but I would leave the ones that aren't full of roots and reconsider the others.
Not much help, sorry.

[legoman_iac]

Not sure of natives, would imagine the root bound ones might benefit from a "slip potting" then wait to prune and develop in October. Means delaying your plans a bit but best not to rush things, and not to put unnecessary stress on the trees or yourself?

[Rory]

I wouldn’t do anything until after winter.

That’s a great selection of natives.
Though you can keep the Callistemons. They just don’t do it for me. I’m more of a ‘not callistemon’ kind of guy.

[Pearcy001]

Thanks all. Truth be told they also didn't get a repot last year (and potentially some the year before?). Will have to rip them out of the pots and make an assessment. Problem is a few are in 30cm large pots (standard deep pots) so slip potting will require even bigger that I don't have.

Also I'm with you Rory, the Mel's and Lepto's are my preference - I do enjoy a little of everything but.

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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[longd_au]

Like all have said, since the Natural Native competition, I've learnt (the hard way) not to touch natives once the days shortens and weather starts to cool. I hard pruned a Mel in April once and it suffered the entire season. Almost lost it. Since not much happened for me at the top, I assume not much will happen below ground after pruning.

[Grant Bowie]

The trick to repotting at this time of year is NOT TO HARD PRUNE. Minor or tip pruning and a repot “SHOULD” be fine. Aftercare is important and do not allow to grow unchecked into winter as you would suffer casualties from frost.

Grant

[KIRKY]

Curious?
Would you be able to do it now if you had a green/hot house?
Cheers
Kirky

[Ryceman3]

I’m not sure I’d be going to extremes (i.e: trying to shoe-horn a tree into its first bonsai pot after a severe root reduction), but if you have severely rootbound trees on your list I’d be looking to get them sorted… trim back a decent amount to fix your issues and maybe return to the same (or slightly smaller) sized container. It’s a long time between now and mid-spring and trying to coddle root bound trees over that length of time sounds like more time and effort than you currently have. I’d feel pretty comfortable with the majority of the Mel’s you mention being fine for this kind of work, and probably the others for that matter. I assume in Yarraville any frost is a fair way off (if you get any at all), it’s not far from me and I think I’d be happy to do it if required.

[BonsaiBobbie]

I am assuming re-potting is based on where you are:

I was reviewing the seasonal notes from the Bonsai Society of Sydney from a few years ago (for April / May) -

http://www.bonsaisocietysydney.org.au/w ... ay2019.pdf

Re-potting

I would advise that if you haven’t done your figs and natives you should be doing them now or wait till August. Pines, particularly white pines, and other more root sensitive trees in relation to Sydney heat, are fine to re-pot from now. Deciduous/flowering trees can now be re-potted. If it is a Northern-hemisphere tree now is the time to re-pot your tree. Autumn is my favourite time to repot due to the length of time the season offers and the
temperatures. Warmish weather and cooler nights whilst the soil is still warm, as opposed to Spring where from November it can be too hot for some trees. Consider repotting if your tree if:

• It dries out too quickly and starts to wilt

• it drains slowly and stays wet for a long period of time

• Isn’t responding to any fertilisers you give

• Has suffered some water related stress during summer

• It exhibits premature shedding of foliage or unexplained yellowing of foliage

• And the more unusual; the tree did not like the pot.

These signs are related to the fact that the soil has been exhausted or the tree is root bound or has poor root growth.

With that in mind, I've decided to finally re-pot the silver birch I picked up from the local nursery that I quite liked the nebari on, that drained very slowly / stayed wet, and whilst I eventually got it to respond to fertiliser, it took some time to.

I even am trying my own special mix (ie it was time to not spend a small fortune on other mixes). Extra bonus was despite not ordering it, a bag of Akadama turned up in my order! I guess they figured I was doing Bonsai.

[Pearcy001]

I’m not sure I’d be going to extremes (i.e: trying to shoe-horn a tree into its first bonsai pot after a severe root reduction), but if you have severely rootbound trees on your list I’d be looking to get them sorted… trim back a decent amount to fix your issues and maybe return to the same (or slightly smaller) sized container.

Sorry I should have clarified in the initial post.

The trees to go into bonsai pots have already had roots reduced previously - Approx 1/3 would need removing for these in order to get them into a shallower bonsai pot.

The trees in larger pots I was intending to remove approx 1/2 (mainly the lower half) in order to get them into a shallower 30cm orchid pot.

Thank you all for the opinion/experience. I'll assess each trees roots individually and make an assessment from there. Minimal frost in my area so that doesn't factor too heavily, but I also don't have a green house (or room for one).

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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[shibui]

At a BSV talk on natives as bonsai Quentin V assured me that it is generally warm enough in Melbourne to repot most natives year round. I guess that will be modified somewhat by which area of Melb. Where he is in the west is probably milder than up in the Dandenongs ranges.

I'd certainly be happy to follow Q's advice on all things native bonsai.

[Pearcy001]

At a BSV talk on natives as bonsai Quentin V assured me that it is generally warm enough in Melbourne to repot most natives year round. I guess that will be modified somewhat by which area of Melb. Where he is in the west is probably milder than up in the Dandenongs ranges.

I'd certainly be happy to follow Q's advice on all things native bonsai.

Great to hear Neil, I'm only about 7-8km south of his place - we'd have very different night temps to Yackandandah I'm sure. Did he elaborate at all on how much he believes it was safe to reduce the roots by?

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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[shibui]

At the time we agreed that the difference in winter temps would explain our different approaches to repotting but no mention of how much root reduction and whether that varied with seasons.

[dansai]

I would be happy to where I live - NSW Mod North Coast - as I'm frost free and have pretty mild winters that generally are rather sunny. Particularly the Mels.

As for the amount of roots, I did a bunch of of Melaleuca alternifolia that were pretty root bound and had obviously slowed down in growth. I took over 80% of roots on most after applying airlayers to all but one. All of them are still fine, some have started new growth.

Mel roots - 1.jpg