Privet re-pot and development

[Gareth]

hi guys,

i first posted this privet here viewtopic.php?f=130&t=12567&start=0#p131801

just before i posted that, about a week or so before, i repotted this privet, and man did i butcher the roots, cut it back to a few feeder roots coming off the two main roots, and flattened out the base by cutting off some large downward growing roots.

At that point i made the mover to an organic based mix, using 50% worm castings, 40% diatomite, 10% zeolite.

1 week after repotting i noticed an immediate difference in growth, colour of foliage and shoot and branch development.

since then its been weekly trims until i decided which bloody way to go with it.

about a fortnight ago i noticed some of leaves started to go a bit pale and some even started to yellow. talked a bit to MattA about it, and he confrimed what i thought that it was rootbound. i did small test, i tipped about 5 liters of water into the surface of the soil of the grow box and timed how long it took to drain from the surface.

the 8 minute mark came it had just drained, another 15 minutes after that and it finished draining from the bottom of the pot down to a few drips. THIS THING WAS PACKED with roots.

so, i started to harvest my worm castings yesterday in anticipation for a repot, i downsized the grown box into something shallower. I was a little disapointed i didnt have more time to dry out the worm castings, and the castings werent exactly great quality, they were fully decomposed, but had a lot of eggs shell fragments and vegetable seeds in it, which i had to sift out, but more on my mix later.

so, pictures, imagine my surprize when i cut the front off the styrofoam box and couldnt see soil, only fine, fine feeder roots, PACKED.

this is after i raked out the soil.

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the other 2/3rds of the root mass which was in the grow box is in the bucket with the soil i raked out, no wonder no water was getting it.

After a root prune

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youll see this root is too far out from the base of the tree, may objective is to force the nebari furthue into the base of the tree, the "branch" of the root stiking out to the right going out of the picture, has been pruned off.

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The mix, and with the anchor wires and tile in the bottom to encourage a flatter root spread, now that i have some feeder roots coming from the bottom to even out the root spread on the nebari.

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the big sacrifice branch on the right to thicken up the trunk and the one on the left, not sure if this one is staying, but i might leave it for now.

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The sacrifice branch at the back, and the savior root, that i hope will thicken and fill in that section of the nebari.

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that root again

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the thread grafts from above.

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The picture of the root from the first few pics that i trimed off, im aiming for this to be at least 1/2 as short as this.

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a back shot of the apex

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i top shot of the apex, still in development, this was fully defoliated and wired 2 weeks ago, pretty good growth i recon!

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Finished repotting

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uhhhhhh the clean up

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Thank god.

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so, more on my mix

1. im going to make sure next time i start with dry seived worm castings, wet casts a little hard to work with, but should dry out in the pot
2. might even add some pine bark or other organic to break it up
3. diatomite will eventually be replaced with pumice'

as far as my organic component goes and how its working im opretty bloody impressed, from no roots to a packed mass of roots in less than 6 months, i recon thats not bad.

The planting angle im not overly concenrned with at the moment, im currently working on

1. branch placement with thread grafts'
2. trunk thickening with sacrifice braches
3. nebari development
4. apex development

all simultaneously. i think this is not a bad result with an organic mix, keeping in mind i havent bought or used fertilizer in over 18 months, and before putting this in a worm castings based potting mix, was using worm casting and leechate as fertilizer up until that point.

All in all im pretty pleased not only with my mix but with the development of the tree over all.

not bad for a tree that no one would give me any feedback on in the first place, i recon im going alright.

[Gareth]

Anyone got anything to put in? Any advice, direction for further development?

[kcpoole]

Thats funny that you had to bump it again in this thread as well.
Dunno why no comments but it is a very nice trunk and deserves a few

How come you are moving from Pumice?
Why not just add diatomite to the pumice?

Surprised you had to thread graft on a privet? thought that it would have back shooted sufficiently. Did it just not do ay back shooting?

Ken

[Gareth]

Hi ken, well, Scott roxborough had good success with pumice and because I can't get maiden well diatomite anymore ( I hope the rumours are true but I'm not holding my breath) I decided he'll why not let's try some pumice.

It seems to be a lot more rounded as well, and there is a bloke on YouTube chasnsx or something who I'm subscribed to, who uses an organic heavy mix and use pumice, it's fairly common in the USA and I thought I would experiment with it, my mic is still in constant development at the moment, ironing out the bugs so to speak.

Yeah it was a bastard of a thing the prick just wouldn't shoot back where I wanted it to, and still throws shoots down low like crazy but none where I want them, but hey as long as the thread grafts take I don't really care as long as there is a beach there!!! Lol.

[Gareth]

And to clarify I use diatomite now, was going to use pumice in place of diatomite as the water holding/granular drainage portion of my mix.

[kcpoole]

Cool nice tree despite being a bas(&*(d

Tell us more about Worm Castings? What are they? Just the dead Skin like snakes?

Ken

[leptolover]

Anyone got anything to put in? Any advice, direction for further development?

Keep following your own path. If a tree's branching is onesided & a species that will backbud, turn that side to get maximum sun & give it a whack with a hammer where you want branches

Nice tree, the taper & movement match in being gradual & not overstated. The sort of trunk that looks good styled more like a deciduous tree of the naturalist school, with the fine ramification thats possible with privet I always like seeing them bare.

Ps. the whack needs to damage the cambium below so only needs to be a compression hit not a full-on bark splitting job.

[Gareth]

Hi ken,

Worm castings are the material the compost worms excrete after they eat organic matter.

They can improve nitrogen yells by something like 5-6 times, when tests were done with manure vs worm castings from
Manure. And it's biologically active, it's laden with bacteria, making the further breakdown of nutrient from the castings an ongoing supply of nutrient to the tree, something I think everyone should look into, if not for use in potting soil just for fertiliser, the worm castings when watered in are great and produce some pretty awesome growth, totally organic and FREE. Great to use on veggies too.

That's interesting about damaging the cambium to get a shoot. I might just do that