APOLOGY : This post isn't about Bonsai Pots......they get put aside for a few weeks during the much anticipated small window of "repotting time" in my household.
Yep, it's been that time of year to start repotting those bonsai you forgot or just plain run out of "get up and go" to do last year.....and the year before.....and perhaps maybe even a few years earlier!
This year I had a keen helper for a little while.
Funnily enough Clare remembers working and watching her father when he was tending to his bonsai in her young years. She said she spent many hours watching him trimming, turning, just looking and seeing his bonsai from all angles. The other amazing thing she told me was that her father gifted his most treasured bonsai trees before he passed away to Bob Langholm and Simon in Auckland. This was many many years ago. I wonder if some of Clares fathers bonsai are still in their collection? Wouldn't it be amazing if they were, after all of these years.
What are the odds of Clare and I meeting up and both having that connection to bonsai? Funny how life has its twists and turns and fate brings people together.
Sadly, the Covid carry on hit before Clare could come back and help me with repotting more of my neglected bonsai. Sadly too....I didn't have the foresight to stock up on potting mix/pumice etc....so I ran out.
Here's a pic or two of some of the bonsai Clare and I managed to get done before "cuppa" time.
Level 4 Lockdown saw me finish off all of my potting mix/pumice brew. I'm not gonna call it "substrate".....for some reason that word seems to be the in trend word this year in some bonsai groups. From good ol' potting mix to substrate.....sounds very flash!
It's now the middle of September and I've managed to stock up with come "click and collect" potting products and have repotted a few extra bonsai. (The pic above is of a Golden Macrocarpa. I've thinned it out a bit as there was lots of dead smothered branches in the middle). Yeh I know it's a bit late as some of the buds are bursting.... but the risk of loosing some of these trees is decently high this year as they have struggled with starvation and next to no root room in some of their pots.
Looks like that's all for this years repotting.....although quite happy with how it went considering the circumstances.
POT MAKING NEXT TIME.....I PROMISE