Holly and Lloyd have repotted these two magnificent bonsai! Have you enjoyed learning more about repotting bonsai trees? If you like these repotting series, please let us know and we will do some more! If you haven’t seen part one, part two, or part three, watch those ones first!

Repotting bonsai trees – The final part

@bonsaidirect Replying to @Bonsai Direct here is the final part to Holly & Lloyd’s big repot. Do you prefer Holly’s flowering Tea Tree or Lloyd’s Ficus? ps.. no, Lloyd can never be serious for an entire video🤦‍♀️#bonsai #bonsaitree #bonsaidirect #nature #garden #teatree #ficus #repot ♬ Chill Vibe Music Box – Dreadie Dub

Holly: Hello and welcome back to our final part of the big repot. Can I just say that you are meant.

Holly: Can you not? Can they see you?

Lloyd: Well, they can now.

Holly: You’ve meant to have sat down by now.

Lloyd: I’m sitting down. Okay.

Holly: Can I just say that you were meant to have the one with the roots? That’s why I gave that one to you.

Lloyd: Yes, but I’ve got the roots on the top. You had the roots down below, digging to Antarctica in here? Yeah. Well, I was quite pleased that you chose that one, because I know what these trees can be like. Really thick rooted. And I got the easy one, really.

Holly: Yeah.

Lloyd: Next time we swap, and it’s like the old saying goes, no point getting older if you can’t get wiser.

Holly: “Well, you’re certainly doing the first part.”

Lloyd: So anyway, how did you get on with that? Because that was quite a challenge, wasn’t it?

Holly: So it did take me a while to get through the roots. Did have to take off a bit, but the styling went quite well I think. Yeah, it looks really well shaped.

Lloyd: Thinned out quite a lot and you can actually see the trunk a lot more now. See the branch structure looks really nice. Yeah.

Holly: Ideally I’d like to wait for this to grow out a bit more. Fill this area. The only thing I had a problem with was this root. Whatever I did, I couldn’t get it to stay down.

Lloyd: Well. It is possible to get that to stay down. It would need some wire. I did think we would have to wire it down. Yeah, we could still probably do it and pull it down. So it’s not showing. But, you know, sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got. You can’t take off too much because obviously you’re going to damage a tree.

Lloyd: “So you can always leave it now for I shouldn’t think it’s going to need doing for another couple of years.”

Holly: I think I’ve teased out enough of it. It’s got enough new soil for now.

Lloyd: Two years time, then you can take out that big root. Yeah. When there are other roots have regrown. Then we can come back and do that one. Yeah, maybe three years.

Holly: All right. We’ll be in next five years.

Lloyd: So anyway, mine was better. Mine. Mine came out much better than yours.

Holly: Thank you. Did you have any problems?

Lloyd: No. Not really actually it went quite well. This soil came out nicely. These roots look great. Really loved this bit around here. There’s so much more I’d love to do. But you said I can’t do it.

Holly: I want to sell them.

Lloyd: But

Holly: You know, what do you want to do next?

Lloyd: Well, I’d like to reposition this branch, train it down a bit more, fan out the foliage. So it’s pads come out around here, adapt this. Branch well loads more. But he is going to be another sort of ten years before it would be ready. So maybe I think.

Holly: “We’ll see you all in ten years.”

Lloyd: Ten years. But I think it’s one of those things that I just have to learn that somebody else. I mean, it’s lovely now.

Holly: Yeah.

Lloyd: So they’re both lovely trees because I love the growing of it in the art, I think. Well, we could tweak this, change this, grow this on and that’s what I love doing. So but then somebody else can take it on because whatever stage you buy a bonsai, it’s never finished that.

Holly: That’s true. That’s a good point to finish, even.

Lloyd: If it was a thousand years old. Anyway, it’s good fun, wasn’t it? I’ve enjoyed doing.

Holly: That. They were good ones to do. Yeah.

Lloyd: Lovely. Yeah.

Holly: So stay tuned and we’ll try and find some more like this to do.

Lloyd: Yes.

Holly: Bye.

Lloyd: I wanted to say bye bye.

Holly: Say bye. Oh.

Delivery & gift wrapping options

We offer free next working day on all bonsai to most regions of the UK. This includes all areas of England, Wales, Edinburgh and Glasgow! Please place your order by 3:15pm for next working day delivery. Alternatively, you can choose your preferred delivery date at the checkout. You can add extras including gift wrap, balloons, and personalised hanging tags once you add the bonsai to the basket. You will also receive a care guide with tips, general variety information and symbolism with each bonsai.

Please keep in touch! Whether it is about repotting bonsai trees, or another aspect of care!

An eco-friendly bonsai tree from a small, independent UK business who are conscious about their sustainability and are helping to fight the fight for clean air.

If you are unsure about which bonsai tree is best for you, for your gift, or you have any other queries, please contact us and one of our friendly team will get back to you.

Make sure you sign up for our newsletter  (at the bottom of the page). You will gain priority access to new products and exclusive offers. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest for behind the scenes, tutorials and lots of other care advice!

Learn about repotting bonsai with the professionals. This is the third part in Holly & Lloyd’s “Big Repot” series! Lloyd Noall is a bonsai master, he is an expert with over 30 years of experience when it comes to growing bonsai. Also, if you like these repotting series, please let us know and we will do some more! What pot colour do you think will go best with each? If you haven’t seen part one or part two, head back and watch those first! Lastly, don’t forget to check back for the final part!

Repotting a Ficus Bonsai Tree with Lloyd

@bonsaidirect Replying to @Bonsai Direct pt3 of the big repot! Here is Lloyd and his big Ficus bonsai tree 🪴 #bonsai #bonsaidirect #trees #nature #bonsaitrees #bonsaitree #plants #plantlovers #smallbusiness #naturelovers #plantlife #homedecor #plantsforsale #fyp #plantsoftiktok #bonsaitok #ficus #banyantree ♬ Chill Vibe Music Box – Dreadie Dub

Lloyd: Today I’m going to be putting this lovely big fig. I’ve chosen this big, chunky blue pot. It’s quite a heavy looking pot, as you can see. In fact, it is actually a heavy pot. I just think it will help give this tree, with all its aerial roots and real strength and some weight to it. So yeah, I think that’s going to look good. Here he is. So here we go. And I’m going to do is just carefully put this in. Just sort of feeling around the pot actually. And he’s quite loose which is lovely.

Lloyd: I remember doing a demonstration at a club years ago, and I think it took me nearly half an hour or nearly an hour just to get the tree out of its pot, which is quite a long time to stand and do something and talking at the same time. But anyway, we got there. Right. So now I’m just going to tease out a little bit here, and I’m going to take off too much. At the moment I just want to start cleaning up all around here. The thing about growing bonsai is that there really isn’t any rush. Obviously I’m not disturbing the roots of the roots. I’m going to be affected that much. Just cleaning up around here so it doesn’t matter if it took me all day.

Lloyd: The next bit is operation clean up. I’m going to do is get a little toothbrush. Nice and wet. Nice clean water, and I just go scrubbing. So you can see here this is a little bit of clean so far. So I want to clean. Just finish cleaning around the roots here because that’s the bit I just need to help me ascertain where it’s actually going to sit in the pot and how it’s going to look, positioning things like that.

“There goes Pogo.”

Lloyd: He likes his input every now and again. That’s Holly’s dog. Little dog. He keeps us on our toes.

Lloyd: Right. So what I’m going to do now is I’m just going to have a quick look at what’s going on under here. Roots look pretty good. Look at that. That’s lovely. These are really good healthy roots. So a nice sort of light browny colour coming off here to this lovely beige bit here. This is the root cap. Nice and healthy. So. Let’s have a look. All is well in the root world. Let’s have a just a little bit of a tease out. Now, I don’t need to take off too much. Like that. And I’m just in a very, very carefully just break up this sort of blocky root ball. So I’m just going to tease them out a little bit. There we go.

Lloyd: This actually is coming away really easily, as you can see. That was pretty good. Where are my roots pruning scissors. These big chunky ones. Nice and strong blades. These have got nice and sharp and they’ll just go through and trim those back like that. And I said earlier, these will stimulate nice new feeder roots. The root hairs the little ones. You don’t want a big heavy thick roots down here. We want thick roots up here. And nice light sort of feathery routes down here. Nice fine roots that are going to absorb all the nutrients and keep the tree nice and healthy.

“Okay, so we’ve had a good tidy up. ”

Lloyd: Let’s get the pot back. Oh, it’s heavy pot. And what I’m going to do now is I’m just going to put a little bit of a drainage layer on the bottom of the pot. And. You can use some like fine, not too fine with some horticultural grit or something like that. I’m actually using this. This is just vermiculite actually. And it’s a very light. And I would rather use this instead of grit. Purely because the next time I come to repot and I’m doing the root pruning, the grit doesn’t damage my scissors, and I don’t have to spend the next hour sharpening my scissors because they’ve all pulled blunt, whereas this actually is just very soft, but actually still drains really well.

Lloyd: So I just put some of that on the bottom if you can see that just enough to cover the bottom there, then what I’m going to do and I’m going to put some soil on the top there. And then we can position the tree. So I’ve left the soil over there. Thought I’d get everything prepared. And then I forgot the soil. So I’m going to go and get that now. So I am just using some akadama for this tree. Let’s just try it for height in the pot for I get too carried away. Now, a little glimpse of what he’s going to look like now.

“What does he look like? Does he look good?”

Lloyd: Hey, I really like that. Bring him up a bit more. Really bring these roots out of the pot. About another inch.

Lloyd: And they’re coming over. Like that.

Lloyd: And I’m going to mound it up in the middle. Nice mound in the middle there so that now I can. Okay, so you can see it’s quite high. What I can do. I can just start wiggling him like that. So we’ve got soil in the middle of the root ball. Push him down. Little wiggle. I’m sort of like work in the soil in the middle of the root ball. So the fresh soil is being worked in too. And just have a quick look, see how we’re doing. All right. And now I’ve got my anchor wire here. I’m going to do now is to thread it through. All the way through these massive roots.

Lloyd: I don’t want to pinch any of the roots in there as well, so I’m quite careful.

Lloyd: I’m just doing a little tweak up there. That’s really good. All right, I need some more soil. So here we go.

Lloyd: Now I can just put all this in.

Lloyd: Now this is the bit everyone finds a bit strange when I pot my trees up as I tip the soil back on the bed that I’ve just cleaned up. Now tipping it in around there. Careful does it at the edge. There we go. Right.

“My faithful chopstick.”

Lloyd: Here we go. Now I like to do is I just put my fingers gently on the soil surface like this, rest the fingers here, and then I just carefully just sort of push the soil, work the soil around, and I can tell with my fingertips the soil is falling away and as soon as the soil stops falling away, I know that that bit is filled up nicely and there’s no air pockets under there. Okay. I want to make sure that soil level, the new soil level, is just below the rim of the pot. So you can see we’ve got a little bit of glaze on the inside here and I can just go around and just pull that down a little bit around there.

Lloyd: Okay. So there we are. That’s. Nicely potted. Now we’ve got to do is I’ve got to go and give him a good water. Okay, so here we are. I have given him a good water, and I’ve changed the settings so that you can just have a really good look at him. Now, appreciate those roots and how good he looks. And his fine new pot.

Lloyd: Well, it looks beautiful. Really beautiful. I know that’s going to look much, much better than Holly’s bonsai.

Delivery & gift wrapping options

We offer free next working day on all bonsai to most regions of the UK. This includes all areas of England, Wales, Edinburgh and Glasgow! Please place your order by 3:15pm for next working day delivery. Additionally, you can choose your preferred delivery date at the checkout. You can add extras including gift wrap, balloons, and personalised hanging tags once you add the bonsai to the basket. You will also receive a care guide with tips, general variety information and symbolism with each bonsai.

Please keep in touch! Whether it is about repotting bonsai, or another aspect of care!

An eco-friendly bonsai tree from a small, independent UK business who are conscious about their sustainability and are helping to fight the fight for clean air.

If you are unsure about which bonsai tree is best for you, for your gift, or you have any other queries, please contact us and one of our friendly team will get back to you.

Make sure you sign up for our newsletter  (at the bottom of the page). You will gain priority access to new products and exclusive offers. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest for behind the scenes, tutorials and lots of other care advice!

Here is the second part of Holly & Lloyd’s “Big Repot”! In this series, both Holly & Lloyd have chosen a tree to demonstrate repotting bonsai including some challenges they face. Holly has been pruning bonsai since the minute she could walk! Even though she is only in her 20s, she has extensive bonsai knowledge. If you like these repotting series, please let us know and we will do some more! What pot colour do you think will go best with each? If you haven’t seen part 1 yet, click here.

Repotting a Fukien Tea Tree bonsai with Holly

@bonsaidirect Replying to @Bonsai Direct here’s Holly repotting her bonsai which is a flowering Fukien Tea Tree. Lloyd will follow on soon! #bonsai #bonsaidirect #trees #nature #bonsaitrees #bonsaitree #plants #plantlovers #smallbusiness #naturelovers #plantlife #homedecor #plantsforsale #fyp #plantsoftiktok #teatree #flowers ♬ Chill Vibe Music Box – Dreadie Dub

Holly: Hi everyone, I’m Holly from Bonsai Direct and this is part two of our big repot. Okay, let’s start with taking this out of the pot. It’s quite root bound so it’s going to take us a little while. I’m just going to start by gently lifting the roots out around the edges. So it’s now out of its pot. And unlike the Ficus, which my dad was, was the tree. My dad was doing the tea tree is a lot more delicate with the roots. So we’ve got to be a bit more careful here. So we want to try and expose the roots bottom here.

Holly: Okay. So what I’ve started to notice is that we do have a lot of big roots coming around here. So ideally this should have been done last year. But we’ve been a bit late getting to it. And now I wish I picked the Ficus that dad did. Okay, so the only thing we can really do here is start to have a look at these smaller roots. Pull, gently pull them loose. Try not to break any. I’m actually just going to cut it about here, there we go. Untangle this bit. Okay, so we finally got that big root out.

Holly: So before we now get to the potting . Just having a look around up here and we have quite a lot of straggly twigs sticking out. So let’s do a bit of pruning. Pruning scissors here. So what we’re looking for anything like this that’s just sticks out, it’s away from its branch and it doesn’t look nice.

Holly: I have started to notice that we do have a little bit of dead bit up here. Which is very, very normal. We just need to take that out. So I do have a very big knob cutters here, which we will try to get rid of this with. Okay, so that’s got rid of the main lump. I can’t remember how much we need to raise this tree up by.

Holly: So it looks good about there. So I can start tightening the where I won’t tighten it completely until we’re finished, but I can just gently hold it in place for now. Just to clean up the roots down here a little bit.

Holly: The good old toothbrush. I do, I promise you, this is a new toothbrush. It’s just the best way to get the roots cleaned up. Now a lot of people do like moss. That’s absolutely fine. I, I prefer to have some clean roots. But I do like moss as well. So that’s just personal preference. My dad would say he prefers the moss on roots. Probably why I prefer it without it.

Holly: I think that is it. Okay, thank you for watching. That was part two. And listen out for part three. Now it is definitely lunch time. My tummy is rumbling, so that is what I am doing next. Bye.

Delivery & gift wrapping options

We offer free next working day on all bonsai to most regions of the UK. This includes all areas of England, Wales, Edinburgh and Glasgow! Please place your order by 3:15pm for next working day delivery. Alternatively, you can choose your preferred delivery date at the checkout. You can add extras including gift wrap, balloons, and personalised hanging tags once you add the bonsai to the basket. You will also receive a care guide with tips, general variety information and symbolism with each bonsai.

Please keep in touch!

An eco-friendly bonsai tree from a small, independent UK business who are conscious about their sustainability and are helping to fight the fight for clean air.

If you are unsure about which bonsai tree is best for you, for your gift, or you have any other queries, please contact us and one of our friendly team will get back to you.

Make sure you sign up for our newsletter  (at the bottom of the page). You will gain priority access to new products and exclusive offers. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest for behind the scenes, tutorials and lots of other care advice!

You may need to repot your bonsai for many reasons. Firstly, your current pot may have broken or is looking a bit worse for wear. Secondly, you may just want to freshen up your bonsai’ aesthetics and a new colour pot will bring a pop of colour into your space. However, the most common reasons for repotting are due to bonsai becoming pot bound or outgrowing their pot. Whatever the reason may be, our repotting kits include everything you need to repot your bonsai. Holly has created a video demonstrating how to repot your bonsai, utilising the kit.

Repot your bonsai with Holly

@bonsaidirect Does your bonsai need repotting? Our pot kits include everything you need to repot your bonsai and Holly is also demonstrating how to repot your bonsai into your into its new pot 🥰🪴 #bonsai #bonsaitree #bonsaidirect #nature #garden #bonsaiart #repot #pots #bonsailife ♬ Chill Vibe Music Box – Dreadie Dub

“Hi, I’m Holly from Bonsai Direct, and in this video I’m going to show you one of our repotting kits and show you how to repot your bonsai into this pot.”

“We have a big range of bonsai pots on our website, so you would definitely find one that fits. I am going to show you what comes in your bonsai kit so you should have everything you need. Comes with a bag of soil, some wire to tie your bonsai in nicely. Some bonsai mesh, for the holes. A chopstick and a repotting guide.”

“So I’m going to start by taking the bonsai carefully out of its pot. I’m going to use the chopstick to take off some of the soil around the edges. So you start to see the roots becoming looser. Make sure you do underneath as well. When you tease around the bottom of the trunk you may actually find some more roots. Now these are really nice, and later on we’ll use toothbrush and try and expose them a little bit more. So once you’ve teased out around the edges and underneath, you can cut any really long straggly bits off.”

“And then we get to the pot. “

“So with your bonsai wire put these up through the bottom of the holes. The two pieces mesh. Like so. This will stop any soil from coming out the bottom of the holes. Open your bag of soil. Just put a little layer on the bottom so the roots underneath and grow. You may need a little bit more underneath. It depends on how thick your root ball is. Now to tighten the wire. Ideally you want the top of the tree to stand upright with the trunk central. Now use your chopstick to work into the soil around the root. Starting to look better now. So our tree is starting to feel quite tight in the pot now. You may just want to get some scissors to cut the wire down. I’m going to use a bit more soil to top dress it now. If you want you can then get hold of the trunk and give any roots you have found a little bit of a scrub. And there we go. Bonsai repotted into its lovely new pot.”

We offer free next working day on all bonsai to most regions of the UK. This includes all areas of England, Wales, Edinburgh and Glasgow! Please place your order by 3:15pm for next working day delivery. Alternatively, you can choose your preferred delivery date at the checkout. You can add extras including gift wrap, balloons, and personalised hanging tags once you add the bonsai to the basket. You will also receive a care guide with tips, general variety information and symbolism with each bonsai.

Please keep in touch!

An eco-friendly bonsai tree from a small, independent UK business who are conscious about their sustainability and are helping to fight the fight for clean air.

If you are unsure about which bonsai tree is best for you, for your gift, or you have any other queries, please contact us and one of our friendly team will get back to you.

Make sure you sign up for our newsletter  (at the bottom of the page). You will gain priority access to new products and exclusive offers. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest for behind the scenes, tutorials and lots of other care advice!