Juni's First Real Trauma

[DDMcKenna]

Wow, I had no idea!

When Juni was less than a month old, (to me), I moved her to this fancy pot because, well, I liked it. But I didn't do anything but undo the wires, pick her up keeping as much soil attached to her as possible, and noted that she had a rather small "root-ball" probably no bigger than a small fist. I figured this re-potting would be no big deal. Just undo the wires and lift her out, shake loose the soil and replant her, yeah right!

It seems as though the entire pot had become her root base. Her baby root hairs reached to every corner. I tried to break as few as possible but it was impossible not to sacrifice a few. And cleaning out the old soil, pfff, not a chance immediately at her base. That was packed so tightly that I would have had to use a knife to cut her.

She'll be lucky if she survives this. The poor thing was happy in her pot. It seemed like she looked forward to seeing me as much as I did her. And she was thriving. She loved her little house in the sun, just the right amount of sun.

So, I have pictures. I think I'll do two just before the repotting and two after. They all show how she has grown from when my son gave her to my last Father's Day. That will be her birthday. She's had more than enough trauma today so I'll not subject her to the clippers for a while. I think she likes all her tiny little arms just the way they are...

I was able to reuse the turntable from an old broken Microwave as Juni's display and work table as I'm able to spin her around fairly easily and I have all the tools from my computer service work so that takes care of all the pliers, clippers, and the like. All I really had to mess with was that wire I used to secure her to the pot. I made sure to have that course screen over the hole in the bottom and I just put a layer of new soil at the bottom and position her before packing in the remaining soil. I bought a three-quart bag on amazon for about $8. That'll be enough to repot her ten times.

[tomc]

Your proverbial chop-stick helps pry out and de-soil Juni. Likewise your chop-stick reversed will push soil back into roots with the blunt end.

If you were able to leave 2/3rds of the roots on Juni, she should do OK. It is time to repot. Now just hug her and water her and talk to her every day for the next 4 weeks. No pruning, OK?

Juniper are sold fresh from the propagation bed. As you note they are on tiny feet. Too tiny to beat central heat-air. Its not easy being green.

I ordered some azalea from Mussers. ((smacks head)) OOoo baby these are inflaming my hoarding gland something serious. I will bulk these up and take cuttings in the next few years, and maybe then plant them to the gardens they were intended...

[DDMcKenna]

I did pretty much exactly as you said, albeit trying to be as gentle as possible. It took almost half an hour just to gently massage her tiny root-hairs to remove as much of the old soil as I could. I just couldn't believe she grew so much down in that tiny bit of soil!

I'm sure I left way more than three-fourths of her roots intact. In fact, I'll include a pic of her old soil with the very few root-hairs that I accidently broke off, just very short tiny pieces even though I felt terrible doing that to her. But I figure mother nature does much worse and all I'm trying to do is imitate mother nature and make her feel like she is in a plush green forest under the best of conditions. I really like seeing her happy but most important, she 'feels' good. I mean, she has that springy softness that makes me think she is really healthy. And none of her tiny green fingers fell off either.

So I'm sure she will be just fine, (I hope), 'cause she seems to like her little house and we both enjoy the morning sunshine.

[tomc]

Pruning roots and top should be thunk of in terms of dog-grooming. Its what we do to keep our pets healthy.

After you have done this for a while you are going to see someone re-work a tree down from its full size into bonsai training.

The similarity to a baseball bat of say, a bald cypress, just chopped back may make you need to change cloths. its that severe.

Juni's going to be OK.

[DDMcKenna]

Thank you so much Tom, it is a learning curve and I've had another curve thrown at me.

Juni looks quite healthy and happy but as you noted, it takes a long time for her to show the effects of certain things. I noticed that with this new soil that I ordered on Amazon that while it 'looks' as course and has as much gravel and pebbly stuff in it, it seems to drain a whole lot slower. When I water her, it takes at least twice as long for the water to drain through the soil. I always pour slowly till the pot is almost overflowing and wait, fill again, and repeat this process until I've flushed about 50 ounces of water through her soil. But that process is taking twice as long now.

I'm NOT concerned about how long it takes to water her. I like spending time with her, checking her out. My concern is that it also seems to be taking much longer for her soil to dry out. I try really hard not to over-water her. I like to wait until her soil is pretty darn dry before I water her but with the extreme humidity here lately, it seems that can take four or five days sometimes. I used to water her a lot more often but I'm trying to stick to the soil test method so she stays as healthy as possible.

I bought three quarts of that soil from Amazon, (don't ask me why), but I figured I would always have some and more, that the finer stuff would settle to the bottom of the bag and I used what was on top. (Perhaps the bag was stored upside down). Anyway, I just wanted to ask if this was a normal condition to find different soils to have extremely different watering characteristics.

David

[DDMcKenna]

Well, as it turns out. My soil problem wasn't anything like I thought it was. Fortunately, (hopefully), I was persistent enough and found it soon enough.

The new mesh screen that I put in the bottom of the pot over the drain hole also had my anchor pin which is necessary because the pot has only a single hole and somehow, Juni's root-ball clogged everything up. It just drained so slow.

I didn't want to traumatize Juni anymore so I just happened to have a few very thin slivers of wood, thinner than a toothpick, and I was able to push three of them up through that hole at three different angles until they protruded from the surface of the soil. I knew what was up when I tried the first one and water started pouring out.

Draining has now resumed it's normal speed and everything seems just fine. Juni still looks and feels great. That pot was holding so much water that I only watered her three times in two weeks. But now, I'm sure she'll be back to her normal self. She can be thirsty in this Florida heat.

[tomc]

Lookit the problem solving your close observation has granted you. Good job!

Once the soil is mostly dried out, I might flip Juni and see if she'll slip out of her pot. If that can happen, you can take out the screen and shake the clog out of the screen.

If that cannot happen it is possible to chop-stick spear the soil through and through and thereby increase drainage. This is a less than perfect fix, but hey any drain inna storm.

A longer term fix will be to start to cast about for hardware cloth with bigger holes. They do make replacement screen for fireplace screens with 1/8th inch weave (instead of 1/16th inch window screen) which is likely what'cha got for screen now.

I tend to seek out older hardware stores. The kind crammed full of junque from floor to ceiling. They will often have the copper wire we need to wire trees, and hardware cloth sold from the roll by the foot. Often they are staffed by sales personel old enough to vote...

My local Blue Seal © Feed Store, is my go-to for soil components.

[DDMcKenna]

Hey THANKS Tom,

Juni -seems- like she's happy. Since I pokes little holes in that screen from the bottom, through the hole in the pot, she seems to be draining pretty close to the way she always had. I say she looks happy because I swear she has increased in size since the repotting which seems like it should have affected her is a couple different ways.

Just the trauma and the loss of a few roots combined with having all her now soilless roots jammed down on a thin bed of that new soil and then more new soil packed on top of them such as the directions implied, all her roots aren't distributed evenly throughout the pot like I found them when I pulled her out of the old soil. I was shocked to see what looked like she had taken over the whole pot, stretching her roots to every corner. I figured she would be sluggish for a while until she reestablished her root system. But instead, her top is getting so big I fear she doesn't have enough pot to support how big she's getting.

And now, another interesting issue I've just noticed the past couple weeks. The Florida sun in May, and I expect at least June and July is SO directly overhead that she really isn't getting as much sun as the roof of her little house casts a shadow over her such that only a few tiny limbs stick out one side to reach into the sun.

I tried scooting her out a little further towards the sun but to go any further would expose her to the extreme downpours we often get in the summer. While I'm at work, she could get blasted with an inch of rain in thirty minutes and 'm afraid that would wash her right out of her pot. So she has to sit under the little shelter I created from the tile roof of her little house.

It seems the rest of the year, the sun is at enough of an angle to give her good morning sun up to and through noon, but I have her house turned so that by one in the afternoon, the sun can't blare down on her anymore.

The little house is all painted with shiny high-gloss white paint so she gets lots of indirect sunlight which I'm hoping is enough. That and the little bit she seems to be reaching out for. She seems determined, as much as I am. I think I'm going to find a better pot for next year's repotting. One with two holes and better screen as you suggest. I thought the screen I used was course enough but I'm guessing planting her main root-ball right over it kind of sealed it up. I think I'll get better at this every year.

David

[rainbowgardener]

Couldn't your tree have screen or shade cloth or something for a roof, instead of solid? That would filter both sun and rain and keep the tree from being pounded with rain, but let some of both through.

[DDMcKenna]

Hey Tom, Thanks so much for the reply,

I bought some of that "shade cloth", or what the nursery said was that. Wasn't very expensive but I'm not real convinced it can protect Juni in these kinds of downpours we have. It can literally dump an inch of rain in twenty minutes, total sunshine either side of that.

What I did figure out on my day off was to carefully watch the sun and how it comes up and shines on Juni's house. What I ended up doing is turning her so that I can't see her from my chair where I sit in the living room because I just see mostly the solid outside of her house with just a little of her sticking out. She growing like a weed!

I noted that the morning sun, which is quite intense, just as it come over my neighbor's fence, and for several hours, gives Juni full sun until closer to noon when the sun is more directly overhead and she goes into the shade of her roof. I'm thinking she is getting lots more sun now that I turned her. And since she's still growing, I think she will be fine. She's growing to the point where I think I've reached that point. I've got to give her a haircut. That freaks me out. She looks so darn happy the way she is but I'm sure you're right. With that limited root availability, she's got to be trimmed a little on top.

So it's deciding how I want to do it. Jeez, not something I'm excited about. I just like playing with her and feeling how springy and fresh she is. It's great to see her do so well considering I've never grown anything before.