AusBonsai

I think the issue with the lower branch may be that you have essentially two branches coming from the same spot where the branch meets the trunk. One of those branches comes straight out toward the viewer blocking the view of that lower trunk. May be worth trying to manipulate that branch to sit back in toward the tree or remove it (the one coming forward). Keep in mind you don't want 2D left and right branching only, but the current branch is 'eye poking' from looking at the photo. Maybe even rotating the tree slightly in the pot will assist? Just food for thought.

Cheers,
Pearcy.

Double up.

No radical decisions made on the lower branch, but i came home today to find the tree had dried out and had folded all the leaves up.

This is the second time it's done it in the small pot, and given it was less than 20 degrees today i decided that it was probably safest to move it into a slightly bigger pot for now and keep an eye out for another, larger, pot for it when i'm in Japan.

For now i just slipped it out of the Koyo pot, and put it in this old thing i had laying around. It will make my life much less stressful in summer so that's a good thing, even though i preferred the tree in the smaller pot. Got to put the health of the tree first though.

A pot change within a thread about a pot change, while planning a further pot change. Pot change-ception.

Surprising as I didn't think the other pot was overly small.
You could have tried sitting the pot on top of a gravel water bath - this works for my smaller more problematic trees.
I'm Melbourne based as well.

As Maxwell Smart might say: "Ah, the old two pot trick!" ... consciously or sub-consciously, I am pretty sure you're just ensuring you buy yet another pot on your next visit to Japan.

Boics wrote: ↑November 13th, 2019, 8:39 pm Surprising as I didn't think the other pot was overly small.
You could have tried sitting the pot on top of a gravel water bath - this works for my smaller more problematic trees.
I'm Melbourne based as well.

Yes I’m rather surprised too, it was snug but not constricted in any way in the pot. I expected that result midsummer, certainly not now. The roots seem healthy enough, but it’s just easier to swap the pot now and work on how I can do better later.

The water bath is something I will try when we get into the really hot weather for sure.

MJL wrote: ↑November 13th, 2019, 8:43 pm As Maxwell Smart might say: "Ah, the old two pot trick!" ... consciously or sub-consciously, I am pretty sure you're just ensuring you buy yet another pot on your next visit to Japan.

The old two pot trick indeed! I don’t think I really need a reason to buy more pots, but it’s sure good to have one.

Seriously though I’d generally rather use pots than keep them on shelves, but for now I’ll give the tree some space to get going and i’ll revisit the pot question again at a later date

I'd kind of forgotten about this thread!

A year and a half on since the last post on this tree and it doesn't look wildly different. It's still in this same pot but i'm considering going to something wider and shallower as this pot now seems like the 'show' pot for the tree not the everyday pot for the tree. I think this is evidenced by the fact it hasn't developed much more ramification than it had 2 years ago; the growth rate is pretty slow now. I love this pot as much as when i got it, so it will be a bummer to not see a tree in it, but i think the health of the tree needs to come first. I have a shallower and wider tokoname Yamafusa kicking around somewhere but the glaze is nowhere near as interesting as this one.

I didn't end up removing the lower branch but it is still weak compared to the rest of them, so this year i'm going to let it run a bit and see if it can pick up in health.

As usual my crappy photos do no justice to the trees, this is quite a sweet little tree in person.