Many of you are deep in the thicket of repotting, which I know can be one of those puzzling puzzles. This is just a short post on what I think are some of the big ones to not forget:

1. Don’t have your tree TOO dry before repotting. Although a bit easier for us, we would have a dehydrated tree just before cutting off many of its feeder roots—which ends up as a lose-lose bargain. Better to have it too wet than too dry.

2. As a general rule, don’t bare-root your trees. That’s for specialists doing special work and try your best to ignore the Japanese magazines showing someone boldly bare-rooting a 100 year old pine, or some silly blog like Crataegus Bonsai showing hosing of a deciduous tree. Bare-rooting probably kills more things than all others combined, so without the attending techniques, I would say don’t do it unless…