Here's a follow up on what happened with potting my M111 root prunings left over from potting bareroot trees last spring.
I planted the ones in October that looked good by then. Some of those I budded in August; others I planted as-is. I had five that I worried would not be able to survive without another year of attention. I left those in the cutoff two-liter pop bottles I had grown them in and put them all in a hole together. I pulled them out of the ground when the frost went out this spring. Today I noticed that four of them were showing white roots around the edges of the pop bottles and one looked dead. I transferred the live-looking four to larger containers. When I dumped the one that looked dead out of the pop bottle, I discovered that it was sending up a four inch tall leader from the base of the root, so I put it back in the pop bottle.
I have attached a photo.
In case you are wondering about the ice cubes, the potting mix I had on hand was very high in dry sphagnum peat moss and so didn't absorb much water when I soaked the pots. I've been using ice cubes to water other trees here for years as my sand is also a bit hydrophobic.
I planted the ones in October that looked good by then. Some of those I budded in August; others I planted as-is. I had five that I worried would not be able to survive without another year of attention. I left those in the cutoff two-liter pop bottles I had grown them in and put them all in a hole together. I pulled them out of the ground when the frost went out this spring. Today I noticed that four of them were showing white roots around the edges of the pop bottles and one looked dead. I transferred the live-looking four to larger containers. When I dumped the one that looked dead out of the pop bottle, I discovered that it was sending up a four inch tall leader from the base of the root, so I put it back in the pop bottle.
I have attached a photo.
In case you are wondering about the ice cubes, the potting mix I had on hand was very high in dry sphagnum peat moss and so didn't absorb much water when I soaked the pots. I've been using ice cubes to water other trees here for years as my sand is also a bit hydrophobic.
