guesskoenig

Repotted my Youpon yesterday in a 2-to-1 breeze/pine mulch mixture. The roots on this thing were enormous and grew straight down. I chopped nearly half of them off and they were still bigger then any other tree I've had. This was a bit of a problem given the shape of the pot I was using, but it's given the tree some nice character.

After rinsing and soaking the roots for about five minutes, I threw three rapeseed cakes on top of the mix and I'm going to let the tree breathe in my window sill for a couple of days before I put some peabody rock on top as dressing. This is mostly to help keep the tree from flopping out of the pot on a gust of wind.

I've attached a couple of photos and I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to better place my fertilizer cakes. The root ball is growing directly down from the tree with little spread. Hopefully now that it's been repotted this will change. Youpons are supposed to be the Hulk of hollies so I'm not too worried about it surviving for now.

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treebeard55

Far as I can see, your fert cakes are well placed. No problem there.

It's a good idea to thread tie wires up thru the drainage holes and tie the tree in (protecting the roots with something like aquarium tubing.) That protects them against being dislodged by wind, tree rats, and curious puppies! Yes, it's easier to do that before the tree is potted. But you could probably still rig some tie-ins on the outside, methinks.

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