AusBonsai

I have these 2 E. nicholii that I ground planted last year and need to pot up as I will be relocating early 2021. The were planted as tube stock and have 1- 1.5 cm trunks above the lignotubers so still quite small. I cut around the trunk base( appox 10 cm) to cut the larger roots with out lifting and reduced the foliage about 6 weeks ago. The trees have both responded and are pushing new growth. Would it be safe to pot up now or give them a bit more time for the roots to recover.
My original plan was to ground grow for a few more years but things change.

I would be happy to dig eucs now with or without root cutting. I actually have a couple growing along the edge of our driveway that I am looking at for transplants in the next few weeks if I can get motivated.
6 weeks after root cutting is plenty of time for new roots to form when trees are active so you should have plenty of young feeder roots.
Please post some progress photos and updates as things happen.

Thanks Neil, just needed a bit of positive feedback. I will post the results when I get it done.

Lifted the smaller of the two today, hopefully there is sufficient roots to support the tree. If it settles down and looks like surviving I will do the second one in a couple of weeks.

My experience is that natives like lots of water when dug particularly this time of the year. I will be interested to see how you manage yours. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice Stu, I have had it sitting in a water tray since the repot and will continue over the next few days with the hot weather we are expecting. It has been potted up in a standard potting mix so it won't be staying in the tray long term.

Four days later and It is looking a little sad, still to early to say. I would hope to see some signs of recovery over the next week or two.

You'll probably get a little bit of die back but nothing to be concerned about IMO. Keep the water up to it for the next couple of weeks and it should come back fine.

This one has gone, but at least it was quick. I can only assume it was a negative reaction to the pruning of the 3 larger roots. I made sure it had plenty of water, Is it possible that I gave it to much water?

I will leave the other one In the ground for another month before lifting and hope for the best

Such a shame. I don't think too much water would've been the issue - I repotted a nicholii last week (chopped off about 3/4 of the roots) and have had it sitting in a tray of water since without any issues.

With your second I wonder if it would be worth digging down from one side to sever any thick downward-growing roots now, then backfilling and letting it recover in the ground before digging in a month?

Greg, I had done just that on both, the attached is the second I just lifted to check out the progress. As you can see there are new roots growing. I have put it back in the bed and given it more water , the soil is quite sandy so very little disturbance of the roots.
My plan is to basically wash the sand off and pot it up then next year after it has settled down do a small root reduction.

I'm a bit gun shy at the moment, lost a few lately.

forgot the attachments

Changed my plan and put it into a pot using a quality potting mix, then went away for two weeks leaving it with the wife to water. I'm happy to report it is still alive, although some of the others suffered a little. I asked if she watered daily her response was " I gave them a sprinkle most days". But none died on her watch, so all good.

In hindsight, maybe you should have removed more foliage from the first one so the reduced roots could have coped better. Whenever I reduce the roots at repotting I always reduce the foliage in proportion to, if not more than the roots. With that method I've had minimal losses.

Probably right, that's why I used the smaller one as the test case.