Water Gum: December 2023 repotting

by michaelruschena Posted on

The Water Gum was repotted in Spring 2022, which means it got a dose of the terrible soil mix I used that year. The Water Gum survived because I put it in a tray of water and never took it out. In fact, it thrived. But that feels like cheating, and is definitely not advised treatment of bonsai, so I wanted to move it to a perlite/pumice mix.

September 2023. A simple three level design in an informal upright style. Leaves are unfortunately large, but there’s a lot to like here. Although note that murky pool it’s sitting in.

Come December, and a mild couple of weeks forecast, and I decided to get some proper soil in place.

Starting point. The three-level style is no longer apparent – that’s just thick leaves. (Not the worst problem to have.)
Note the tendency for the top branches to grow straight up. That’s not going to help.

In the past when I’ve had a pot in water for long periods of time, I’ve had all the roots get out through the drainage holes. I was worried that might have happened, but it turned out not to be a problem.

Looks like the water kept at a high enough level that the roots stayed mostly inside the pot.

The soil was solid and dry.

The pot is on its side, so that’s just as awkward a shot as it looks.
It’s a harsh soil, but there’s plenty of fine roots there.

The roots actually seem to have done quite well.

And we’re done.

That’s kind of a square top, which I didn’t notice at the time.
(Not shown: pruning.)

At some point I’ll need to start some defoliation to hope I can get the leaf size down. But not this year.

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