I said I was going to wait a little while longer, but I got to thinking that the longer I waited to thin out some of these roots the worse the scarring was going to be, and the greater the chance that one in a bad position would choke out one in a good one. So, did some root pruning today. This is one of those times where less is more. We get a much more visually appealing result by removing some of that root mass than we would have had by keeping it all.
After I was done, I found some roots with slack and some previously empty areas of the skull (like the space behind the cheekbones) that hasn't had any soil in it, so I pushed the slack roots into those crevices and then packed them full of damp soil. While I have some vain hope that maybe it'll encourage them to put out more roots in those areas, in reality the soil will dry out in this heat far too fast for it to do much in the way of new root growth. But they will help keep the roots I pushed in there in place long enough for them to fatten up and hold that shape permanently.
As some of you may remember from last year, I collected some moss starts from out in the woods that I can use in the final project as cover for the bare soil that won't send down invasive roots and threaten to choke the pepper out of it's limited bonsai pot space.
Since moss takes no nutrients from it's substrate (the stuff it grows on), it is VERY slow growing. I mean, this is seven or eight months of growth (and about half of what I currently have). Much like the bonchi itself, it takes a lot of time and patience, but the payoff is worth it. The hope here is that when the bonchi is done, I'll have a nice thick sheet of this moss already attached to this pliable mud that I can use to make a shell around the actual bonsai soil underneath. And since its moss, I can just mist it with a sprayer on a regular basis to keep it green and happy without having to worry about overwatering the pepper.
And lastly, an update on the Cumari.
It had a small pulldown today, mainly because these little ornamentals don't grow long deep roots very quickly. But You can see the plant is healthy and happy, and that we're finally seeing dominant roots appearing. Which actually is one of the main indicators for this one as to when to pull down, I didn't want to do so when there wasn't signs of good strong roots.
And on the off chance that anyone is wondering why the soil is always sopping wet when I take these pictures, its because when I do pulldowns in containers I typically dig a trench around the plant about twice as deep as I want the pulldown to be, then use water to pour over the top and wash the excess dirt down even. Much less traumatic to the plant that way than trying to dig it all out by hand.
That and usually I'm out watering things in this near 100 degree heat and checking in on them as I do it, and then if something interesting is going on I finish up then go inside to get the camera.
No comments:
Post a Comment