I looked at the forecast, we're in for a week of fairly cool temperatures and lots of rain. If that dense soil managed to compact and block the drainage holes in the container, that would be a very BAD thing, like project ending root rot bad. So, again, relatively cool temperatures (between 70 and 80 Fahrenheit) for the next week, I decided to repot now. Get it some fresh soil with more particulate matter so that it can breath better, and to raise it up a little higher, give the feet more room underneath to grow down into.
Step 1: Lift the plant, soil and all, out of the container. Now, if you've never really done this, there is a trick to it. You don't want to dig the plant out, that causes root damage, which in turn causes undue stress to the plant. Instead, hit the sides and bottom of the container with your hand repeatedly, going all the way around the edges and bottom. This will cause the soil to come loose from the sides, then you can slide your hands down between the edges of the soil and the container, and lift the entire thing out in one solid piece, as shown above.
Step 2: Use your garden hose with no sprayer on it to wash the soil away from the roots. Use your thumb to get a jet going, but don't make it too strong. The idea here is to wash the soil away from the roots without damaging them. The bottom of the rootball I didn't do more than blast the very bottom of to loosen it up, I did not try to remove all of the soil from the middle column. That will help lessen the trauma as the plant will still have untouched roots to draw from while the rest heal and settle back in.
At this point, it looked pretty freaky, honestly. It was like the skull was trying to regenerate a new body made out of plant roots. The good part of all this though is that the skull and the jaw are completely locked in place. I had tried gluing the jaw in the open position originally, but I know I broke the glue when I put it in the container because I heard it snap. Carrying it around as just skull and roots now however and I could see a little jiggle indicating that it was two pieces, but the roots held everything in place fairly tightly on their own, which is perfect.
I'm also noticing that the lower jaw isn't lined up 100% straight with the rest of the skull, its just slightly askew, and I think thats awesome. I hadn't intended it to do that, but that little bit of imperfection should really help sell the overall image. Happy accidents that I will of course claim were completely intentional design choices in the future. ;)
I want your soul...
Seriously, that was freaky.
Anyway, fill the bottom of the container with nice fresh soil, set Mr. Head & Shoulders in and get everything up to a level you're comfortable with. Then start filling the edges in with soil to re-bury him back up to his neck.
3) Once the soil level is up where you want it (just under the jawline in this case), press in and down around the skull to make sure you push the roots up under the skull a little bit in order to keep it tight. I used water from my rain barrel to wash everything down flat as I was going to make sure I had enough soil. You don't want to think you're good and then find out days later that it settled and left you high and dry. Plus, it helps wash the soil back in between the roots, again helping the plant recover quickly.
4) Last chance to re-position the roots. We had some in front that were curling around in odd places, so I took them and moved the loops around to hook the chin for a good grip, and pulled some roots out of the mouth. Originally when I first buried the skull, I pushed the roots up into the mouth to make sure they wrapped all the way around the skull. We still want that, but the ones near the front I wanted to look more prominent so I pulled them forwards and hooked them in place. We also seem to have chipped a tooth somewhere along the line, but oh well. That just adds some character.
And bam, the hardest, riskiest parts of the entire project are now complete.
We have grown the Reaper, we have done some early trunk shaping, and most importantly we have stretched the roots down over the skull in ways that are both visually appealing and structurally anchoring.
Next steps are to basically stop messing with it for a few weeks and let it recover. As the root masses start to dry up and fall away, I'll of course be pulling them off to expose the key roots, and likely prune a few of these lower roots as we go, so keep checking in.
Also, after seeing how freaky the roots looked as a neck, maybe next time I do this I should see about the top half of a rib cage and shoulders. Just how big of a project could I accomplish? Hmmm... maybe next year I'll order a full on replica skeleton and see if I can't flesh the entire thing out in a single plant's roots...
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