Whew, I didn't screw it up! I mean... Season 2 Begins!

As per the post title, WHEW!

It was two weeks ago that I gave the project reaper it's super hard chop to get rid of the second round of aphids and clean out the entirely too dense branches that had developed over the winter from the previous chops, and a week since I put it out in the raised bed.

Was starting to get a little worried that it was too hard of a chop followed by too cool of weather (it dipped down into the 40's a time or two), but checking it today reveals:

See 'em?  See the little green leaf buds?  ITS ALIVE!

Okay, I didn't kill it.  Its warm (its actually 85 out there now), and we should be all good.  WHEW!

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Ahem, composure regained, lets get back to some actual update news.

As you can see in the above picture, I buried the plant back up to the base of the skull again.  I had several issues with the neck, namely a lack of stability and several important face roots keeping a rather tenuous grasp on the soil.  Decided that it was worth a shot, but that I'd rather stick to a good looking version of the original design than keep pushing the neck that might end up ruining the entire thing.

This season should be a good one for it.  Without the constant pulling down of soil, the plant itself should be much less stressed, which means it should get a lot more growth.

Now, while I will be continuing to selectively prune off new growth in areas I don't want (like down on the base trunk or too low down on the limbs), I intend to let it grow however it wants above a certain line.  I want it to grow big, tall, bushy, and set lots and lots of pods.

Why?  Because that is how we will thicken the trunk, the limbs, and the roots up to truly gnarly proportions!

You see, the roots and the trunk will only grow thick enough to support the current amount of foliage.  If I were to keep it pruned down to proper bonchi size now, the trunk and roots would essentially stop developing.  Sure, they'd grow a little bit, but its the constant pruning that stops a bonchi (and bonsai in general) from getting bigger.  But to get them up to size, you want them to grow lots of leaves so that there is a constant demand for ever increasing amounts of support.  Same for the roots, the greater the demand for nutrients, the more root development we get.

So, by letting it grow big and bushy (note to self, get a tomato cage to put over this one so the extra growth has some support and the lower limbs don't break) we should thicken the trunk and limbs up, and especially setting pods will put a lot of demand for nutrients on the planet, which should turn our spindly roots into a real gnarled mess, which will be great.