Bonsai Basics: Repotting a Bonsai Tree

Hi, in this episode we're going to be talking about how to repot your bonsai tree. So let's get started. Okay, the first thing you need to gather are your tools. Okay, so the first thing I have is some plastic drainage brush. A good shear. You'll be using this to be cutting your roots and sometimes you'll hit some dirt, so don't use your best shear, just use a decent shear. A root cutter. This tree is pretty small, so I don't expect the roots to be too big, but a good size root cutter is good for that. A wire cutter. This will be used to cut the wire when you're using it to fasten the roots, and also for cutting the wire when you're creating the loops to attach the drainage screens to the pot. And I've got some two millimeter wire here. And a root hook as well. This will be used to loosen the roots and sort of remove the soil. Put this on the turntable. And as you can see, this tree has a pretty big root mass. We're going to have to remove about 70 to 80 percent of the old soil. What I've got here is a really organic soil. It's actually a nursery soil, so it's not the best. But we're going to switch it to a mix of akadama and lava for its final soil in its pot. And as you can see, we have to remove quite a lot. We're essentially trying to fit this tree into this pot, so you can imagine. So I'm going to start taking my root hook, and I'm just going to slowly remove the soil. Using the root hook, just slowly pull away from the roots. You don't want to stab at it and break all the roots. You kind of want to loosen them and pull them away. Essentially, you're just trying to get dirt in between to fall out. So you'll be shaking the tree a lot. With the juniper nana, you don't have to worry too much about the roots. It's a pretty strong tree. Unlike some other junipers, like the California juniper, where you have to be very, very careful with the roots. Okay, I've changed the angle on the camera here to give you a better look at what I'm doing here. As you can see, there's quite a lot of roots, and I just got to slowly kind of work myself here with this root hook to remove all this soil. All right, so just kind of pull away. Another trick is sometimes people will go from underneath to get at that root ball in the center and loosen it from underneath. That's a good trick. And just turn your tree. Okay, at this point, you're going to start seeing the tree pull away. You'll see quite a lot of roots, like this one right here. I don't know if you can see that okay, but I've got a very big root right here. I've got a lot of roots over here too that are not necessary. The juniper nana you can cut. You don't really have to worry too much with the nana. It'll do fine. So take your root cutter and just cut that root like that. Okay, detach it that way. Do that for the other roots. That's why it's good to have a good root cutter. It makes cutting these roots extremely easy. Okay, so I've got the mass, most of it removed. I'm going to go ahead and put this to the side. And I'm still not completely done with removing the soil. So I've got to keep on going at it. Okay, as you can see, I've removed quite a lot of the soil. And now I'm left with basically just a couple feet of roots. Some bigger roots that if they're in the way, I will cut. But I'm going to take my old shear now, my old shear. And I'm going to cut some of these feet of roots. Now, the reason we do this is because you want to promote new roots to grow once it goes into the new pot. And by doing this, the new roots will sort of spread out from that point where it's cut. So don't be too scared to cut here. The feet of roots will grow back and they'll grow back healthier, which is great for the tree. If you look at the color on some of these roots, you'll notice that they are rotten already. It's another good reason to cut the feet of roots. Some of the rotten roots won't do you any good. So if you cut them, you'll promote a lot of new growth. Okay, let's see if this is going to fit. Let me clear out this a little bit. Okay, it looks like I may have to go a bit more. Actually, you know what? I think I'm okay. All right. Yeah, I'll go a little bit more. So I got to be able to get the new soil around all the roots. So I want to give myself a little bit more space. So now that we've gotten rid of the soil and cut back the roots, here's a good idea of how it's going to look inside the pot. A little bit like that. Now we just need to prepare the pot. So let's work on the drainage screens. So if you look on your pot, every pot is going to have drainage holes right there. We're going to want to cut some drainage screens on there. So I'm using my plastic mesh and I'm just going to simply cut it. I'm going to simply cut it right there to the size over, you know, bigger than the actual hole. I'm going to cut two of them, one for each hole. And those are going to just go over just like that inside the pot. And that'll keep the soil from falling out. It'll also keep any bugs from coming in from the bottom as well. Okay, so I'm going to grab my two millimeter wire. Use my wire cutter and cut a small strand, maybe about this big. You know, I'd say that's about six, seven inches. Okay, I'm going to create a loop. Then we'll create two loops, just like that. See if we can see it clearly. Yeah, see it kind of clearly. Okay, then I'm going to push them down like this. It's a very simple way of securing your drainage screen to your pot. It's going to look just like that. I don't know if you can see that. Okay, so I'm going to slip that into the drainage screen, just like so. I'm going to position it inside. From the bottom, I'm just going to push those outwards. And then your drainage screen will stick inside. Okay, and then I'm going to repeat the process with the other one. Same way as I did the other one. Pull this out like that. And then they're secured to the pot. I mean, if you want, you can straighten them out just to look nice. But it's not necessary. And then if you want, you can cut the excess here. I cut it a little bit longer than I needed, but it's better than coming up short. So we'll cut some of the excess. And then my drainage screens are inside the pot. Okay, I'm not done preparing my pot yet though. I've got to feed wire through the bum because I need to fasten the roots to the pot. The reason we do so is so that the roots don't loosen when it's in the pot. And sometimes if the roots loosen inside the pot, that'll dry out the roots and sometimes you'll lose your tree that way. So I'm going to create two strands of wire. What I'm doing is measuring exactly how long I need the wire to be to sort of fish it through the pot. So that's one and this is two. And I'm just going to feed that through the bottom of the pot just like so. And then come up like this and kind of drape it along the edges like that. I'm going to do the same with this one, the next one. I'll feed it through, through the holes in the drainage screen, outside the top of the pot. And then essentially what you're going to end up with is kind of like a, like an X like that. And you're going to use these to fasten the roots of the tree to the pot. Okay, so now I'm going to look at my tree and I've cut enough roots. So let's go fit in there really nice. But I'm going to put a little base layer of soil. So what I'm using right here is some lava rock. It's a little bit higher grade. It's bigger. And what this will do is create a nice layer on the bottom so that the roots don't rot and so that the soil, when it breaks down, it won't sort of compact in there. It'll also provide the tree with very, very good moisture. Sorry, it'll provide the tree with very good drainage. Okay, so right now I've got the lava right there. Okay, and I'm ready to position my tree. Okay, so now I'm going to pick my tree up. Lift this up a little bit. And when I styled this, I already chose the front of the tree. It's going to be this side. This is the side with the best danibari and the biggest root base that you can see. Also has nice movement. And the tree was actually styled for that to be the front. So this is going to be the front of the tree right there. When you potted it inside the pot, you want to make sure that you have more space in the front than on the back. Now the reason for that is just aesthetically, it's going to be a little bit more pleasing to the eye and it's just going to look much better that way. So when you position it, make sure you give a little bit more room in the front than in the back of the pot. So for example, if I put this into the pot right here, you're going to see that there's a lot more room in the front. Let me move my fingers. A lot more room in the front as opposed to in the back. Okay, now I'm going to take my mix. Taking my mix of sort of lava and Nakadama. This is sort of the mix I use for my best trees. I'm going to put a little hill in the middle. See if you can get a better look here. Okay, so I put a little hill in the middle like so. Oops. And that way the soil will go right into the middle of the roots. So when I push this in, I want to twist that in a little bit. Make sure the soil gets all the way inside the middle. Okay, then I'm going to check the position of the tree. And it looks like I've moved it a little bit. So sometimes your branches will come out of position. You'll need to rearrange them later. Let me get that positioned nicely, just like that. And now I can go ahead and secure the wire at the back of the tree so that it's not visible. I'll turn it around in a second so you can take a look. So right there, I'm securing the tree with the wire. And I've made sure that the wire was long enough so that it would reach all the way to the end and be able to tie easily. Now I'm going to check the position once more before I tighten it. Okay, some of these feeder roots on the top are going to get cut after it's all done. Push that in a little bit more. That looks good to me. So now we'll take some pliers and secure this. I'm going to secure this really well. That way the roots won't shake. Or shift. And that'll give the tree the best chance of being healthy. Okay, so I'm going to tighten the wire. Okay, as the wire gets a little bit long, you can cut it back and then tighten again. Okay, so now it's positioned in there really well and it's secure. If I were to lift up on this tree, it's going to bring the pot with it. Okay, it's in the position that I want it. When choosing the pot, typically you want to choose a pot that's about 80% of the width of the foliage. So if this is 100%, the pot width is about 80%, that sort of gives its best balance. So this pot is actually pretty ideal for this tree. Okay, okay, that looks pretty good. So now we'll take the remaining of the soil and fill the sides. The soil I'm using here is a mixture of akadama and lava. The lava creates great drainage because of the pores that the lava has. And the akadama is great for retaining moisture and also provides some nutrients as well. Okay, so now we'll take my repotting stick right here and we'll search for air pockets. Air pockets, you'll want to make sure you get rid of all of them. Because if there are air pockets left in your soil between the roots, the roots will dry out at that location and you could possibly lose the tree. So go ahead and take your repotting stick and make sure you find all the air pockets. There's quite a lot as I'm working in here. You'll notice that the soil is disappearing as I'm shaking it around. A lot of the soil is going into the side as you can see. Let me position that a little bit better. So we'll keep on working in here. Don't rush this part. If you've got air pockets, you might lose the tree. So just make sure that you take the time to fill in all the gaps in the soil. And then add more mix as you need it. Okay, so we'll continue to do this. Now you'll notice that as you do this, the tree will get more and more stable inside the pot as well. Right now it's shaking a little bit, but that'll go away once I get this all completely stabilized. Okay, I'm getting close to finishing here. At the end, just use the stick to push the sides downwards. And what this will do is it'll push the soil in towards the middle and sort of tighten the tree inside the pot. Okay, now know you're done. If you try to shake your tree and it doesn't move at all. Okay, so now I've got a few feet of roots on the top. So go ahead and cut those. You don't want to see them. So let's cut them. And the last step is to water your tree. Okay, so when you water it, just water the whole thing. You don't have to water the foliage if you don't want. But make sure you thoroughly douse all the soil in here to make sure it rinses any of the fines. It rinses all that out. Any of the dust, it rinses all out down the bottom. And just watch as it drains down the bottom. And you can go ahead and water it for, you know, maybe I usually do about 30 seconds. And that, you know, maybe I'll stop in between. Then I'll start again and make a few passes at it. But that'll usually completely rinse the tree out. So I will be right back right after I water this. Okay, so I just got back from watering the tree. Some of the soil washed away. That's okay. I'll put some more on the top later. I'll also remove some of these feeder roots still. Looks like when I watered it, some of them came out a little bit. So we'll just cut those off. But as you can see, there's a repotted bonsai tree. So those are the steps for repotting your bonsai tree. As you can see, it came out okay. After that, just water as you would normally. Make a few passes at it. Now that it's in the good soil, it's probably gonna do extremely well. So thanks for watching and subscribe if you'd like to see some more. Thanks!