Bonsai Basics: Repotting a Bonsai Tree

hi in this episode we're going to be talking about how to repot your bonide tree so let's get [Music] started okay the first thing you need to gather are your tools okay so the first thing I have is some plastic drainage mesh a good Shear uh you'll be using this to be uh cutting your roots and sometimes you'll hit some dirt so don't use your best Shear just use a decent Shear uh a root cutter uh this tree is pretty small so I don't expect the roots to be too big but a good size root cutter is good for that uh wire cutter this will be used to cut the wire when you're using it to fasten the roots and also for cutting a wire when you're creating the loops to attach the drainer screens to the pot and I've got some 2mm wire here and a root hook as well this will be used to loosen the roots um and sort of remove the soil put this on the turntable and as you can see this tree has a pretty big root mass um we're going going to have to remove about 70 to 80% of the old soil uh what I've got here is a really organic soil it's actually a uh Nursery soil so it's not the best um but we're going to switch it to a mix of aadama and lava for its final soil in its pot and as you can see we have to remove quite a lot we're essentially trying to fit this tree into this pot so you can imag it so I'm going to start taking my root hook and I'm just going to slowly remove the soil using the root hook just slowly pull away from The Roots You don't want to stab at it and break all the roots you kind of want to loosen them and pull them away essentially you're just trying to get the dirt in between to fall out so you'll be shaking the tree a lot uh with the Juniper Nana you don't have to worry too much about the roots it's a pretty strong tree um I'm like some other junipers like the California Juniper um where you have to be very very careful with the real EST okay I've changed the angle on the camera here to give you a better look at what I'm doing here as you can see there's quite a lot of roots and I just got to slowly kind of work myself here with this root remove all this soil all right so just kind of pull away another trick is sometimes people will go from underneath to get that that root ball in the center and loosen it from underneath that's a good trick and just turn your tree okay at this point you're going to start seeing the tree pull away um you'll see quite a lot of roots like this one right here if you can see that okay but I've got a very big root right here I've got a lot of roots over here too that are um not necessary um the junip perana you can cut you don't really have to to worry too much with the Nana um it'll do fine so take your root cutter and just cut that root like that okay attach it that way do that for the other Roots that's why it's good to have a good root cutter makes cutting these roots extremely easy okay so I've got the mass most of it removed moved I'm going to go ahead and put this to the side and I'm still not completely done with uh removing the soil so I got to keep on going at it okay as you can see I've removed quite a lot of the soil and now I've left with basically just a couple feet of roots um some bigger roots that if they're in the way I will cut but I'm going to take my old Shear now my old shear and I'm going to cut some of these feeder roots now the reason we do this is because you want to promote new roots to grow once it goes into the new pot and by doing this uh the new Roots will sort of spread out from that point where it's cut so don't be too scared to cut here the feeder Roots will grow back and they'll grow back healthier which is great for the tree if you look at the color on some of these roots you'll notice that they are rotten already um it's another good reason to cut the feeder Roots some of the the rotten Roots won't do you any good so if you cut them you'll promote a lot of new growth okay let's see if this is going to fit let me clear out this a little bit okay looks like may have to go a bit more actually you know what I think I'm okay all right yeah I'll go a little bit more so I got to be able to get the new soil around all the roots so I want to give myself a little bit more space so now that we've gotten rid of um the soil and cut back the roots here's a good idea of how it's going to look inside the pot little bit like that um now we just need to prepare the pot so let's work on the drainage screens so if you look on your pot every pot is going to have drainage holes right there uh we're going to want to cut some drainage screens on there so I'm using my plastic mesh and I'm just going to Simply cut it going simply cut it right there to the size over you know bigger than the the actual the actual hole I'm G cut two of them one for each hole okay and those are go just go over just like that inside the pot and that'll keep the soil from falling out also keep any bugs from coming in from the bottom as well okay so I'm going to grab my 2 mm wire use my wire cutter and cut a small strand maybe about this big now I'd say that's about 6 7 in okay I'm going go create a loop then we'll create two Loops just like that see if we can see clearly yeah you see it kind of clearly okay then I'm I'm going to push them down like this it's a very simple way of um securing your your drainage screen to your pot it's going to look just like that I don't know if you can see that okay so I'm going to slip that into the drainer screen just like so and going position it inside from the bottom I'm just going to push those outwards and then your drainage cream will stick inside okay and then I'm going to repeat the process with the other [Music] one same way as I did the other [Music] one pull this out like that and then they're secure to the pot I mean if you want you can straighten them out just to look nice but it's not necessary and then if you want you can cut the a here I cut it a little bit longer than I needed but it's better than coming up short so we going to cut some of the excess perfect then my drainage screens are inside the pot okay I'm not done preparing my pot yet though I've got to feed wire through the bomb cuz I need to fasten the roots to the pot um the reason we do so is so that the roots don't loosen when it's in the pot and sometimes if the roots loosen inside the pot that'll dry out the roots and sometimes you'll lose your tree that way so I'm going to create two strands of wire what I'm doing is measuring exactly how long I need the wire to be to sort of fish it through the pot so that's one and this is two and I'm just going to feed that through the bottom of the pot just like so then come up like this and kind of dripe it along the edges like that I'm going to do the same with this one the next one I'll feed it through through the holes in the drainer screen outside the top of the pot and then essentially what you're going to end up with is kind of like a like an X like that and you're going to use these to fasten the roots of the tree to the pot okay so now I'm going to go look at my tree and have cut enough Roots so it's go fit in there really nice but I'm going to put a little base layer of soil so what I'm using right here is some lava rock it's a little bit higher grade um it's bigger and what this will do is create a nice layer on the bottom so that the roots don't rot and so that the soil when it breaks down it won't sort of compact in there it'll also provide the tree with very very good moisture uh sorry it will provide the tree with very good drainage okay so right now I've got the lava right there okay and I'm ready to position my tree okay so now I'm going pick my tree up this up a little bit and when I styled this I already chose the front of the tree um it's going to be this side this is the side with the best nabari um and the biggest root base that you can see also has nice movement and the tree was actually styled for that to be the front so this is going to be the front of the tree right there when you when you pot it inside the pot you want to make sure that you have more space in the front than on the back now the reason for that is just aesthetically it's going to be a little bit more pleasing to the eye and it's just going to look much better that way so when you position it make sure you give a little bit more room in the front than in the back of the pot so for example if I put this into the pot right here you're going to see that there's a lot more room in the front let me move my fingers a lot more room in the front as opposed to in the back okay now I'm going to take my mix taking my mix of uh sort of lava and aadama uh this is the this is sort of the mix I use for my best trees I'm going to put a little Hill in the middle see if we can get a better look here okay so I put a little Hill in the middle like so oops and that way the the soil will go right into the middle of the roots so when I push this in I going want to twist that in a little bit make sure the soil gets all the way inside the middle okay then I'm going to check the position of the tree now it looks like I've moved a little bit so sometimes your branches will come out of position you'll need to rearrange them later let me get that position nicely just like that and now I can go ahead and secure the wire at the back of the tree so that it's not visible I'll turn it around in a second so you can take a look so right there I'm securing the tree with the wire and I've made sure that the roots that the wire was long enough so that I would reach all the way to the end and be able to tie easily now I'm going to check the position once more before I tighten it okay some of these feeder roots on the top are going to get cut after it's all done P that in a little bit more okay that looks good to me so now we'll take some pliers and secure this I'm going to secure this really well that way the roots won't shake or shift and that'll give the tree the best chance of being healthy okay so I'm going to tighten the [Music] wire okay as the wire gets a little bit long you can cut it back and then tighten again okay so now it's positioned in there really well and it's secure if I were to lift up on this tree it's going to bring the pot with it okay it's in the position that I want it when choosing the pot typically you want to choose a pot that's about 80% of the the width of the foliage so if this is 100% the pot width is about 80% that sort of gives its best balance so this part is actually pretty ideal for this tree okay okay that looks pretty good okay so now I'm going to take the remaining of the soil and fill the sides the soil I'm using here is a mixture of aadama and [Music] lava the lava creates great drainage because of the pores inside of the because of the pores that the lava has and the aadama is great for retaining moisture and also provides some nutrients as well okay so now I'm going to take my repotting stick right here and I'm going to search for air pockets now air pockets you want to make sure you get rid of all of them cuz if there are air pockets left in your soil between The Roots the Roots will dry out at that location and you could possibly lose the tree so go ahead and take your your your potting stick and make sure you find all the air pockets there's quite a lot as I'm working in here you'll notice that the soil is disappearing as I'm shaking it around a lot of the soil is going into the side as you can see let me position that a little bit better so we'll keep on working in here don't rush this part if you've got air pockets you might lose the tree so just make sure that you take the time to find all to fill in all the gaps in the soil and then add more mix as you need it okay so I'm going continue to do this now you'll notice that the tree will as you do this the tree will get more and more stable inside the pot as well right now it's shaking a little bit but that'll go away once I get this all completely stabilized okay I'm getting close to finishing here at the end just use the the stick to push the sides downwards and what what this will do is we'll it'll push the sole in towards the middle and sort of tighten the tree inside the pot okay now now you're done if you try to shake your tree and it doesn't move at all okay so now I've got a few feeder roots on the top so go ahead and cut those you don't want to see them so let's cut them and the last step step is to water your tree okay so uh when you water it just water the whole thing you can you know it's good you don't have to water the foilage if you don't want but make sure you thoroughly douse um all the soil in here to make sure it rinses all any any of the fines it rinses all that out um any of the Dust it rins it'll rinse all out down the bottom and just watch as it drains down the bottom and you can go ahead and and water it for you know maybe U I usually do about 30 seconds and that you know maybe I'll stop in between then I'll I'll start again and make a few passes at it but that'll usually completely rinse the tree out so I will be right back right after I water this okay so I just got back from watering the tree um some of the soil washed away that's okay I'll put some more on the top later I'll also remove some of these feeder Roots still looks like when I watered it um some of them came out a little bit so we'll just cut those off but as you can see there's the repotted bonsai tree so those are the steps for repotting your bonai tree um as you can see it came out came out okay um after that just water as you would normally uh make a few passes at it now that it's in the good soil it's probably will do extremely well um so thanks for watching And subscribe if you'd like to see some more thanks

Channel: Eastern Leaf

Views: 545,154

Keywords: bonsai, bonsai trees, repotting bonsai, how to repot a bonsai, repot bonsai

Id: 5-55iSXsw-I

Length: 19min 16sec (1156 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 02 2015