As a creature of habit, I tend to stick with things that work. I really worked hard to score this light blue Yamaaki pot years ago, and think it’s a great fit for the tree…probably will continue to be for years to come. But I’ve been really bored with my collection lately and decided to shake things up quite a bit. So far, in normal repotting conditions, I’ve repotted trees into different containers a little over half the time this year.
This tree has been in only 3 different pots since about 2005
2006, Houtoku pot purchased at the monastery2012, Yamafusa pot, also from the monastery2018, Yamaaki bought from Yorozu-en a few years prior.
Bringing us to current.
In late winter, I added some thread grafts. The tree is losing vigor and needs to have new growth pushed back closer to the trunk. Either through hard pruning or some strategic grafting.
See the long shoots allowed to grow last year?Drilled holeThreaded through SealedSecond graftSecond one sealedFinished
Now, to the repotting. This one always takes a while because I’m working to improve the nebari a little at a time.
Unpotted
Confirming the Suishoen is the same size as the Yamaaki…
The underside needs to be cleaned of all these new and crossing roots so the base can rest on the bottom of the pot.Small roots removed from the underside, leaving fine roots around the edge.Settled into the pot, pruned to a good fit.As luck as it, the backside of the nebari is better than the front!Soil added, watered and topped with a layer of chopped sphagnum.
This should look nice when those bright red leaves emerge. Not a bad 4th pot.
A few weeks later and the characteristic bright red leaves are covering the 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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Nebari Bonsai 
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.