AusBonsai

HI everyone,

I have recently acquired a Black Pine. It medium is very compacted to the point where today being very worried I was able to remove it from its 10" pot without any disturbance to mix at all.

I know its the wrong time to repot or touch it but any suggestions? Should I put it into a bigger pot with a water retaining mix surrounding until it is safe to repot.

A Black Pine Challenge for a newb.....please help me not kill it!

I will be looking forward to advice on the right time to repot these but I can tell you not to be concerned about it being root bound. Repotting time is not far away. Just the fact that the root ball can come out of the pot in one piece is no reason for concern. In fact that is a good sign. If the root ball is so dense that it is hard to water I would recomend watering by submerging to ensure all the roots are getting water and take extra care not to water too often.
I know of an elm that was in a small pot since a seedling and was not repotted for 27 years. The nebari looked like a golf ball unwrapped.

Hi Techpetal,
in daylesford, Victoria i repot my black pines in nov, dec and january. As bretts said no need to worry about it being potbound. If you are truly worried about it till potting time you can cut out a couple of small triangular pieces and fill with fresh potting mix to give it a bit of breathing space.

Thanks guys, I'll have to do something as any water that I get into it simply hits the edges of the pot and runs straight out.

I know pines like it dry but.......

Hi,

Please do not take this as an disagreement, I am just pointing some different info and practices that
I have adopted and come across.

More than 10 years ago, I have received some hand-outs of black pine instructions from experienced
members from Victoria Bonsai Society. I am looking right at these hand-outs at this moment.

One hand-out states -- November... repot pines Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb.

The other states -- Pot in Spring, when neccessary, before new candles develop....

I have ALWAYS followed the later one. I did some of my pines very early in August, and some last
weekend. I have found that for those that have long candles, there are a lot of young milky-white
roots, for this reason, I could never found the courage to repot black pines in Nov, Dec, Jan or Feb.

Now, I do not at all know if there are advantages repotting them in Nov, Dec, Jan or Feb. By the same
token, I do not know if there are advantages repotting them in late Jul, Aug or Sept either.

Experienced members, please kindly share your experiences on this topic.

Best regards.

you can repot jbp from august to march. depending at what stage of developement and where you are located specific times can be optimum. i would think if refining and ramifying its better now. if growing on and fattening doesn't really matter when.

Hi Antonio,

But how does it affect the health of the black pines though? While they are growing strong,
we repot them, would that be a big shock?

We rarely repot deciduous later than Sept under normal circumstances.

Best regards.

viet you have a point but why would ya if they are growing strong. i have never thought about it more than ive stated and they have always grown on with out any real hick ups. i did have problems with a few young ones last year late october, that were ridiculously pot bound and i took off too many roots. prior too that, not.

I always like bonsai4me as reliable care sheets.

REPOTTING Repot in mid Spring every two to five years, depending on root-development.

Repot as the Pine comes into active growth (the candles have extended and the new needles can be seen held tight against the candle), do not repot too early. Mugo pines react far better to Summer repotting.

This is general for pines maybe there is more specific uptodate info.

bill valvanis repots his jbp's in summer. New York.

I have always repotted JBP late August with no problems. I have a couple of older trees that I only repot every three years.

John T

Over here, most people repot in March, the equivalent of your September but two months later is quite acceptable for JBP.

I have done 3 so far, but they are all in the growing on stage. My bestest one which I am working on Brnach ramification will wait till later in Spring

Ken

Thanks everyone, I might leave it another week or two into the first week of September and then repot.

I might even leave it a bit longer if the Academa order is likely to be soon


Cheers
John