Chinese Hackberry [Celtis orientalis]
Shohin

MARCH 7, 2023. I’m disappointed in the little tree once again. I took it out of the small round pot yesterday with the intent of repotting it in the larger blue round and trying again for new roots at the “bulge” of the trunk. That might work eventually, but seeing the row of small holes I drilled the last time, with no new roots in sight of course, I just felt a big let-down. I’ll either have to admit defeat and just always plant it deep enough to cover those holes with soil, or I’ll have to try something more drastic. Not a full ground layer, of course. Too much invested for that. But maybe a sort of reverse of the idea of chapping roots part way around a tree before collecting it. Do a partial dut around part of the perimeter and see if I can encourage roots that way.

I’ll ask John what he thinks.

August 6, 2022

August 6, 2022. After all it’s been through, this little tree is getting better all the time. If I remember correctly, even the leaves have reduced some more. I might put it back in a larger pot next year though, with some coarser soil mix to encourage growth in th root size. That should work, but only time will tell. I’m beginning to think of a shohin trio, with this one, the chinzan azalea, and the juniper in the Eli Akins pot. That might actually work some day.

March 16, 2022

March 18, 2022. I finally got around to moving this one back into a pot of appropriate size. When I talked to John Walker last spring, he suggested waiting until fall before taking the moss off and looking for new roots. I went even further, probably because I was afraid I would mess it up. This week I pulled up my big boy pants and did it! The process was only partly successful, because there were new roots only on one side of the tree. There was even one crazy root sticking out of the side of the trunk! I must have put the moss up a little high.

Anyway, the placement of the roots meant I had to rethink where the front would be — I want those roots to show! So i clipped off the top of the tree, cut back one big branch, but stopped myself from going too far. I hope I stopped soon enough; time will tell. This photo shows the tree right after the repot. I’ll post another one later, when it has leafed out. Meanwhile, I’m going to stick some photos of the whole process down below. It was sort of fun to document what I did.

April 10, 2020

April 10, 2020. I’l really behind on updating this page! Last year, because of the messed up hand, I didn’t repot the tree. I sort of coddled it a little, I cut some branches back, I probably screwed things up along the way. But in spite of two foreign trips during the year, associated lack of coddling, and some really bizarre weather in the fall, the little thing survived and actually did OK over the winter. About 6 weeks ago I did a repot into a larger pot so I would have room to do what Kathy suggested about encouraging new roots. I was a little surprised when I drilled small holes along the broad part of the lower trunk to discover that some of the breadth was seemingly all bark. There was no live material for quite a while in, and I assume that the dead stuff was bark. Anyway, I went ahead with the process, used some rooting powder, and packed chopped sphagnum moss around that area. I think I need to go back and increase the pressure on that moss though; the saran wrap isn’t doing the job.

On the other hand, the growth has been great this year! Just look at the photo. The leaves are too big, but that will go away in later years, when it’s back in a smaller pot.

May 18, 2018. I took this one off the stand at the ABS show today and went over some possibilities with Kathy Shaner. This week I need to go ahead and put the tree in a larger pot to encourage growth and get it healthy enough to do some real work on it. There are two things that need to be done.

She talked me through the way to go about encouraging new roots at a more appropriate spot around the base of the tree. The need to do that was so obvious we didn’t even mention the possibility of not doing it. I just need to prick holes at 1/4″ to 3/4 inch intervals around the tree where I want to encourage roots. Make them pretty deep; use a small pick but be sure to keep the edges clean. Use a toothpick to put some rooting hormone in the holes. Place additional soil or perhaps most up to a half inch or so above the level where the roots are desired. Then just wait to see what happens.

The other thing we talked about was branch development. I shouldn’t try to rebuild more than a couple of branches a year. Don’t give the tree reason to push bigger leaves on the branches that remain. Pick them carefully, looking for branches that are over grown or that lack internal taper, etc. Also I need to start being more careful about pinching new growth. Kathy says I don’t need to let new growth extend before cutting it back, just to encourage back-budding. It should happen anyway.

March 22, 2018. I should have updated this page before now. The tree was showing some green on buds, so I repotted it last month. It’s in the little Youzan-Eimei round that I like so much, and I think it’ll be stunning after I grow some moss around the trunk. I’ll try to find a nice bright green moss to put there. I’m not all that happy with my winter pruning job. Now I just have to let a lot of shoots extend and hope for some back budding. Then I can cut some of the over-long branches back, and tease some others into place to fill in some gaps–if I don’t get back-budding in those spots.

January 2018. I took this to the ABS Saturday workshop, and Paul Barrett took a good look at the tree. I think he’s right about needing to do something about new roots, but I’m not sure this is the time to do it. I want to wait until I’ve made it through a full year with the tree before I start something like that. Meanwhile, I did go ahead and prune the small growth back. Now I need to think about repotting. Now that I have taken a careful look at the photos, I’m concerned about the side extension of a couple of branches and the gap I’ve created on the left side of the front silhouette. But I’ll wait until leaves are out before I cry about it.

August 2017. This one came from Don Blackmond–my birthday gift to myself this year. I probably shouldn’t have spent that much money (over $1,000), but I did. Here’s what he said in an email before I bought the tree.

The tree is ready for some pruning and could use a little wire right now. Otherwise, it’s in prime shape and health. I normally wait until the end of July or early August to prune. We have a mid-summer dormant period in July and that’s typically not the best time to prune. This season is different though. Strange weather. In any case, this tree is available now. It’s a Chinese Hackberry and is originally from Japan, imported by an east coast collector with a bunch of other trees.