Last month I took my ficus bonsai (his name is Tree because Words Are My Life) to a tropical bonsai class at Chicago Botanic. I was concerned that he needed intensive root pruning, which he had never had before. Instructor, however, seemed to think that he was doing better than I feared. He appeared very healthy but needed more room for roots to expand, which meant getting an even larger pot than the one I had. So, that weekend I stopped by the Midwest Bonsai Exhibit and bought a larger pot. Then I fiddled about for a month, worried about how to proceed, until early September when I decided hell with it, extracted Tree from old pot and flumped him into the new one.
I should add that he should’ve been repotted and had root work done multiple times to this point, but this is Kris’s Learning Tree and so he pays the price.
I didn’t remove much—there’s a brick of old root mass that’s essentially solid and will need to be worked through. Maybe some heavy root that can be sawed away. But for now I just want to get Tree settled in the bigger pot and give him a chance to grow more fine feeder roots. I won’t be attempting any more root pruning until next summer.
I will add that he received many compliments from other class attendees. One person said he was the best-looking tree there.
For comparison purposes, I have included a photo of Tree back in 2008 after I damned near killed him by leaving him out in sub-45F temperatures for way too long. Ficus are tropical, which I did not know at that time.
The original pot was much smaller, maybe 8 inches long x 4 inches wide. The new pot is 14 inches long by about 10 inches wide.
It’s been an educational journey.