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Recently, this old Pine has come into my care. My aim is bring the tree up to show standard in the next few years, and then further develop the refinement of the branches.
In early Autumn, I noticed that when watering the water would often pool on the surface and run off the edge of the pot rather than penetrating deep into the pot wetting the entire rootball. In light of this, I decided it was time to perform Autumn Soji on the tree.
Before Soji:
First thing I do is get out the bent nose tweezers and rake the top of the root ball outwards. That it from the centre of the pot to the rim. (I just realised i didn’t capture pictures of this) the reason that we rake outwards, is that it only damages the crossing and unattractive roots. It should also be noted that if there are any small roots crossing or growing upward etc this is a great opportunity to cut them off. Large roots are cut at repotting.
To help the water penetrate the rootball more thoroughly I ‘cored’ the rootball
Next, I added some Osmocote
I then sieved the new ‘top soil’ (Akadama/Diatomite/Zeolite with a little charcoal and granite added, it would be 33:66 Akadama/Pumice but I have run out and need to get back to Sydney to pick up some more)
Next, new soil was added
Fertiliser replaced and watered thoroughly
Just prior to winter, I completed some more autumn clean up work. The work consisted of removing old needles, and cleaning out growth that was in the wrong areas blurring the outline of the tree.
Aijou Bonsai 