You can look at repotting in one of two ways. Either it is a drudging chore that has to be done at some time in order to keep your tree alive, but to be procrastinated an extra year if at all possible. Or it is the best opportunity of the year to transform your tree to a higher level of quality and expression, and at the same time help to give it perpetual good health (and a life longer than yours). The whole hobby of bonsai will be much more rewarding for you if you begin to look at all aspects of care in the latter rather than former light, and your trees will show it.

There are so many ways that the time of repotting can be used in a way to improve your tree! The following brief summary of step by step tasks will hopefully provide a guide to how to approach repotting as an opportunity rather than a chore. Also, please join us either as a participant or an observer in the repotting workshop on Mar 5, announced elsewhere in this newsletter.

Study your tree. First look at the trunk base and root structure. You want to have the Nebari, or root base shown to its best advantage; the roots should flair out from the trunk in spiral fashion like a great old tree. In a bonsai pot, the roots should spread out most prominently from the right and left sides, and only minimally directly forward. Just above the roots, the trunk should be positioned to look the widest from the front (if it is not perfectly round). The trunk line should angle slightly to one side or the other unless it is a formal upright. The front of the trunk should have either a straight or concave curvature from the front view, not a convex or "chickenbreast" curve.

Next, look at the trunk line. If the trunk has curves, the side to side curves should become progressively narrower as you go up the tree. Your number one branch should have its foliage plane at the same level as on an outside curve, usually about a third of the way up the trunk. If the trunk has a long slant, the first branch should be on the outer rather than the inner part of the slant. The second branch should be on the opposite side, again with the foliage plane on an outside curve. The #3 branch should be a back branch, either between or above the level of the first two. The remaining branches should all follow this same pattern.

Avoid bar branches (two branches arising from the same level on the trunk), and crossing branches.

The apex should lean forward. It should have some depth and should be rounded, not pointed.

At least with evergreens, and perhaps with any tree, the branches should slant downward, not point upward. Each branch should have secondary branches that follow a pattern similar to the pattern of the main branches on the trunk.

Now I know some of you are already thinking "I recognize those stiff Japanese rules, and I’m my own person.. I’m not going to be bound by any of those antiquated rigid conventions not even relevant to Western trees". However be aware that these are just exaggerations of the rules of nature, not just old Japanese rules. Branches on the inside of curves get shaded out by branches above them, and eventually die on old trees. Bar branches compete and the stronger one eventually dominates, and the weak one dies. Apexes don’t just keep growing with single pointed leaders all the way to the sky, they stop rising and spread.

Thus, if you want your tree to be a convincing model of a true aged tree, these are good rules! The problem is that no tree is perfectly formed this way, and the art and challenge of creating a bonsai is to do the best you can do with the material you have to work with. So, rarely will you have a tree that will conform to all this, and you have to make choices of how best to compromise.

 Keep in mind also that some styles don’t follow these rules, especially bunjin, broom , windswept (the garbage style – if you can’t make it anything else, there’s always windswept) and the canopy styles for tropicals.

At any rate, you’ll eventually decide on what for your tree is the best front and the best planting angle.

1.) Now prepare your tree. Any wiring or pruning should be done now, keeping in mind your new front and design. This is an ideal time for major pruning; not only can you "balance" the amount of top pruning with root pruning, but the root pruning also temporarily stops sap flow and prevents large wounds from bleeding. This is also the best time to do detail wiring on deciduous, but don’t knock off the buds!

2.) Select your pot. Typically, evergreens look better in unglazed pots, deciduous in glazed. Strong powerful angular trees look better in rectangular pots, graceful curved trees in oval. The pot should be about as wide as two thirds the height of the tree. Thin trunk trees look better in shallow pots, as so deciduous in general. Bunjin belong in shallow round pots.

3.) Prepare your pot. Wire screens over the drainage holes. Place long wires through the drainage holes to secure the base of the tree, if desired.

4.) Select your soil ( a whole topic of it’s own!). Generally it’s good to screen the soil and keep it course in the lower portion of the pot, finer on the top layer. Add the bottom lay ers of soil to the pot.

5.) Root prune your tree. This is a complex task if you want it to be. In the first potting, the old field soil must be completely removed either by combing it out with a chopstick or pick, or hosing it off. On a bonsai with good soil already, you may leave the inner soil in tact. Comb out the roots, and cut off the outer 1/3 to 1/2. Selectively remove down growing roots or roots that are way to thick for the size scale of the tree. Leave the surface roots spiraling from the trunk, and over several years keep in mind that you want these to eventually be the only roots; once you have achieved this, cut them back somewhat each year to encourage them to branch, ramify and thicken, constantly completely removing the competing down growing roots. Eventually this will give you a wide beautiful trunk base and root flare. This is also the time you can graft on a root if your tree is totally blank where you need a root.

6.) Position your tree in the prepared pot. It should be slightly rear of center, and slightly to one side (usually the opposite side as the direction of the initial slant. Be sure there is enough soil under the trunk base to raise it to the proper level in the pot. The roots should be visible at the top of the pot but not rising out of the pot.

7.) Add the remaining soil, and work it around the roots with a chopstick ( I think these things were really invented for bonsai, not for eating) so that there are no air pockets.

8.) Soak the soil. My personal preference is to submerge it in a sink for 30 minutes or so, but you can gently but thoroughly water it with a hose or watering can. I prefer to add Superthrive and a very tiny amount of 0-10-10 fertilizer. Never add nitrogen.

9.) Put the plant in a protected area for about a week. Ideally it should be protected enough that it won’t require water for the first four or five days.

There you have it. Have fun!

-Doug Hawley