Hawthorn Yamadori

Yesterday I collected my first yamadori. When I first saw the tree, it "spoke" to me. It has lovely old bark, some natural dead wood, nice nebari and has been kept trimmed by grazing cattle. The tree was not too difficult to dig up, but what I had not been prepared for was how heavy it was! I had retained as much root as possible and a lot of soil too, and then only just managed to get it back to my jeep.

Now my question...
I have left as much root as possible on the tree and so have had to use a rather large box to plant it into. There is a long, thick, downward pointing root which has meant that the pot needs to be rather deep. A friend has reccomended that I cut the roots back and pot the tree into a smaller box, but I was under the impression that it is best to retain as much root as possible before trimming back and re-potting in a couple of years. So... should I keep it it it's current box or trim the roots and get it into something smaller? Would it be too stressfull to repot the tree again now?

Regards, Lee.

The tree in the ground last month...



Arriving home...



Potted...

Hello Lee. I would leave this Hawthorn in its present container. Hawthorn don't generally have a huge amount of roots when collected and reducing root mass now will reduce your chance of success.

Dear Lee

It is not easy to see, what is grassroots, and what is craetegus roots, from the photo.
But it should be safe to take a look next winter. I have a coupple of this trees collected, and I find they do not need a lot of roots, before potted in the first bonsaipot. But be carefulll with drying winds for a while afterwards.

Kind regards Yvonne

Thanks for that folks. I tried to make sure that the soil was nice and open and free-draining, so shouldn't be any problems then hopefully. Can't wait to start working on it now.

You realise, it will be a couple of years before you start working with this tree?

will baddeley wrote:You realise, it will be a couple of years before you start working with this tree?

Yep.

Would you work on wiring, shaping etc in a couple of years and leave it in it's current container for another year, or cut back the roots and repot in a couple of years and leave the styling longer? I guess it would be too much to cut the roots back and style the tree both in the same year?