I recently posted photos of four cork oaks that responded differently to being dug up and planted in containers. One weathered the transition well, two immediately lost their leaves, and the fourth showed few signs of life. Just three weeks later, the trees are looking a lot better. Here’s the first tree.
Cork oak – no signs of stress after uprooting
The second two trees look almost as good as the first. The second tree leafed out quickly – the third tree leafed out and produced many buds along the trunk.
Tree two fully leafed out
Tree three with lots of new shoots
The fourth tree made a surprise comeback. It’s leafing out and budding back and is on track to catch up with the other trees in the coming weeks.
May 3 – the fourth tree is finally leafing out
As I’m primarily interested in getting the trees healthy at this point, I’m letting them grow unchecked to help them develop new roots. I’m also starting to feed them a bit to support the new growth. Cutback and branch selection are still out a ways – will report back when the time comes.
Subscribe to Bonsai Tonight
New Posts Delivered Every Tuesday and Friday
Bernard says
Jonas,
Do you have any idea why the trees responded differently to being dug up? Would it have anything to do with how much of the root ball you were able to leave intact? Also when growing the tree, did you cut back any of the larger surface roots in order to keep them in proportion to the trunk?
.
Jonas Dupuich says
Hi Bernard – I think the difference, as you suggested, is in the number of roots that were cut. I didn’t grow the trees so I’m not sure about the process, but based on what I saw when I repotted, it looks like the larger roots had been removed along the way as each tree had good lateral roots, but not enough fine roots near the trunk.
viciolicito says
….lindooo…quero muito ter um bonsai…
https://viciolicito.wordpress.com