AusBonsai

I have a naive question - when's the best time to repot a cedar? I've been told that the right time is when the buds are swelling. I've found that in my collection, different cedars are at different stages (this may most likely be attributable to the fact that I've had a couple of them much longer than the others - giving them a chance to acclimate to this location much better). Some have not yet begun swelling, others are much further along.

I was hoping to repot the himalayan cedar - but I'm afraid its well on it way since the new needles are already a cm or two long. Is it too late for this year? It's been very prolific this spring in that I'm seeing new shoots all over the plant.

Does timing/ margin of error vary between atlantica, deodara and libani?

Appreciate any help on this.

Best,
H

Hi H,
I’m in Melbourne, last year I re-potted a Cedar in October with its spring growth in full flight - it didn’t miss a beat. See post ‘Cedrus atlantica - shakan’ - I am not an expert but my thoughts would be that you are fine to repot in early to mid-spring.


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Your question is definitely not naive. There is still quite a lot of conjecture and disagreement over cedrus repot time even among very experienced growers.
My experience only extends to a couple of trees but I have repotted in spring without any problem. As MJL has already offered it does not seem to matter if they have already started to shoot. The window seems to be quite a bit wider than some would have us believe. I know that one very experienced grower told us that a better time to repot cedar was mid summer. He grew very good trees but I have not been brave enough to try that with mine.
There is also a growing number of people, especially in cold norther countries, who repot cedars and other conifers after summer solstice with great success. That seems to give them a chance to grow new roots before the cold of their extreme winters.

Individuals of all species bud up and grow at different rates. I just posted some pics of trident maples growing right next to each other with very different shoots. I think this is due to individual differences but added to that are factors like the pot size which could influence how quick the roots warm up in spring, age, size and location.
There does also seem to be some minor differences between the cedrus species. Deodar seems to be hardier than the others.

I have re-potted my atlantic cedars in mid-summer and they have thrived.

Wonderful. Thank you for your responses. I think I will go ahead with repotting it this week. My primary motivations behind this are to move it into a more open mix, and start sorting out the circling roots in the nursery pot.

Harshad

I have flour Atlantic cedars which I repot when buds begin swelling which for me is usually mid-August. I did major work on the roots removing at least 50%. They kept going like nothing happened.

Im going to try a late re-potting of my cedars, a lebanese cedar and a blue atlantic cedar, in mid-late spring. Will let you know how it goes

Hello H I have a couple of Deodaras and usually repot in the Illawarra around August, anytime now is fine Peter

Nice. I've done one blue Atlas over the weekend. Might do the himalayan this week. Fingers crossed.

Old thread, but I thought I would put my experience in the queue.

The go to Cedar person in our club reccomends repotting on the hottest day of the year. I did that this year in February with a significant (50-60%) root reduction from a training Styro box for one tree and about a 30% reduction on the other. After that was Done I benched them against a south facing wall for a few weeks and they did fine. The 50% one dropped a tiny amount of needles after about a month - just one here and there. The 30% one didn't blink an eye.

They were both healthy at the time and I live in the Yarra Valley - so hot days are pretty hot. Hope this helps.