I've got a bottle brush in the ground too but the trunk is nowhere as massive as this one.
I needed some help with it, the weight was a killer on the back when moving it about and Hem gave me a hand to handle this first step in transforming that nursery plant toward becoming a bonsai.
Basic info on the plant:
Latin name : Phyllanthus acidus
Common name : Bilimbi rond, Gooseberry tree
Acquisition : Medine nursery, Mauritius
I did the repotting in winter.
The tree had loss most of its leaves and there were indications of several buds starting to swell.
But there was also several places on the trunk and branches that clearly indicated that the wood was dead underneath and holding water. So I needed to work on this too.
I took the opportunity to try out the various Ryunga carving tools in the process.
I used some chalk to identify the areas to carve out or cut off.
Then proceeded with the help of Hem to carve or remove those areas.
We made use of the tree being stable in the nursery bag to do as much carving and hard work before proceeding with the repotting.
After the carving it was time to have a look at the roots and repot Mr Bilimbi Rond.
The root completely at the bottom is what I'm aiming to become my future base. This means that all those roots above on the main trunk will need to be remove and I will also need to encourage and toughen the root ball over the following years.
There is this huge root towards the middle of the future trunk line that needs to be removed, but I decided not to rush at this point. I'm keeping it there for now and will remove it and jin it at the next repotting session.
Ended up by repotting the tree in a training pot. Over the next repotting sessions I will progressively repot the tree higher and remove the unwanted roots.
After a couple of days following this first repotting, the buds that were starting to swell before the work session finally bursted some new leaves.
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