While I love the oval Koyo and think it’s a great fit for showtime, it is a bit too small for daily use.
This year, it was reported into a wider, shallower vintage Heian Kouso pot.
Minor root work; simply combed out the very fuzzy roots (which grew up and into the fertilizer cakes used this year), and removed some large downward-facing roots from the bottom.
Fresh soil (akadama and lava 2:1) was worked in, and top-dressed with some small grain akadama.
Since it has started growing already (work done on Feb 10), it will need to be protected from the inevitable sub-freezing nights we will have over the next 3-5 weeks. It is also time to apply lime-sulfur to fight against aphid and cedar-Apple fungus which plagues this tree.
I have been studying bonsai since 1994, in an ever-increasing obsessive fashion. In our last 5 years prior to moving from Iowa to Alabama pursuing a career in the foodservice industry, my bonsai collection was limited to a few varieties that could survive brutal winters outside, or winters under dim light in the dank basement of our humble duplex...my wife puts up with a lot. Including the trailer hitch I put on our brown 1983 Chrysler New Yorker to pull a U-Haul full of trees to Nashville for a 3-month stop along the career path that led us to Alabama. 12 years later, we no longer have the New Yorker; and not a single one of those trees remain on my bench, having given the last holdout to a new club member this summer. I prefer collecting native trees and buying the classical species used in Japan, feeding organic, and reading everything I can get my hands on.
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