Getting to the Roots: Apple Seedlings [Bonsai]

It's been a while since I have made any bonsai posts. My followers know I love to share photos of my miniature tree collection. Now that it is winter, most of my outdoor trees are in hibernation.

In early October I did a bunch of work re-potting several trees. Some of them had too much moss growing on top. Others had outgrown their pots.

When a tree is overgrown the soil and roots mound above the lip of the pot. Water does not fully percolate through for the roots to absorb. Instead it runs over the outside of the pot.

Throughout this series "Getting to the Roots", I'll be exposing many of my trees in bare root form. By studying the roots, we can easily assess how healthy and unhealthy the trees are based on the type of soil, water, light, fertilizers, and pots they were grown in.

Natural gardeners and lovers of compost, plants, and trees will highly enjoy this series as I get my fingers deep in the rocky soil of my snarled tree roots. Seeing trees in their raw, naked form without their usual soil dressing on can be quite explicit and eye-opening. So be sure to follow me in the fun.

This first article, I had a set of three apple seeds that all grew into little baby trees. Each are the same age, and they grew at different rates. One of them was becoming too tall for the pot and the roots are likely becoming crowded by the other saplings growing in the pot. They are ready to be separated.

These seeds came from an apple fruit labeled "Lucy Glo". It's an amazing sweet red apple with pink fruit flesh. On these young trees, some of them have exhibited signs of their parent, with red wood and purple veins in the leaves. Even the sap is wine red juice.

This is the pot I selected for the largest of the saplings. The water tray is attached to the pot, so I'll need to be clever in how I fasten the tree to it.

The two large holes. No way I'm going to fit a wire through there, because there is only a quarter inch of air space underneath, and the tray will not separate.

There are no drain holes under the tray. No way to access underneath the holes in the pot.

Fortunately, I learned a trick that works well.

Four sticks provide a base frame. It holds down the wire screen to keep rocks from falling into the holes. The sticks will be held down with the weight of the soil and provide a solid base to give the wires something solid in the pot to hang onto.

Above is my three saplings after I removed them from their small pot. All the roots are spiraling around together into a single root ball.

Here is the underside where the roots crawled through the screen. Rather than slice all these roots off, I'll use a dish of water to help gently slide off the screen, and free the roots.

The largest tree has been removed, and I hold it in the pot over a small pile of rocks to see how it will fit. I've already pruned off the longest root.

This pot is much too large for the size of the roots. I believe apple will grow very vigorously though, and will quickly fill this pot in a few a years.

I've filled the pot with pumice, akadama, lava rock, and small pine bark pieces. I also attached a wire to help style the tree into a nice curved shape. This tree took to the wire very easily, with young and flexible green wood. The wires under the base sticks have been folded over the surface roots to hold the tree down into a firm position.

Through the roots might be pinched by the wire, a firmly planted tree is always healthier than a loose tree that wobbles in the breeze. As long as the roots are firmly in contact with the soil so it does not move, then the roots will continue to extend and grow to nourish the tree.

Apple wood becomes especially hard over time and can withstand the pressure of the wire for now.

The soil level is nicely tamped down below the edge of the pot, so rainwater will trickle down through the roots.

This is an asymmetric tree design, so I planted it offset slightly. The roots underneath are actually well-centered.

Very excited to see how this tree will turn out. It looks extremely healthy and happy!

Let's not forget, I have two more saplings to deal with. This tree gets a better sized pot. Still a bit large, but much more proportional to the shape of it's top growth.

The shape of the roots tell an interesting story. See how it grew horizontal, and then snaked upward. The trunk had to snake around the roots and trunks of the neighboring saplings. An aerial roots bored straight down to feed the stem from an additional location it found.

I believe that seeds often grow best in clusters during their earliest weeks. As the soil changes drastically in dryness and wetness, the roots of its neighbors I believe can help regulate the soil into the ideal state of humidity (balancing air and water, as a sponge).

When a plant gets older though, it needs more room and space to grow. By natural selection the strongest plant usually survives. With a helpful gardener nearby, we can assist weaker plants by giving them more space to grow and provide them the proper balance of water, light, and soil.

This tree also handled a styling wire quite well. It reminds me of a vine flower blossoming with a trumpet bloom.

I chose to expose part of the roots above the rock, because the roots are very thick in this area where it divided. I've mounded the rocks around the base slightly to allow the roots to grow more deeply out into a cone flair.

If both of these roots thicken up, it will provide a very ideal nebari shape for the tree.

Here in this light we can see a bit of the purple tint on some of the leaves.

Last, least, and far more alive with potential than it would seem is the final apple seedling. It was replanted in the same pot as before, with fresh new soil. When the plant is this young and tender, I like to grow it in mostly organic matter, but a few rocks will help it to transition into bonsai soil eventually when it's ready for another repotting.

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Photos in this post are all #originalworks by @creativetruth, unless stated otherwise.

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