(Continued)
As the pictures show, it’s doing very well, I think. And that led me to a thought: I had meant to leave it alone, except for fertilizer, for one more year. But now I’m wondering if it would be safe to repot again this spring. The reason for doing so would be to remove a little more of the native soil, enough to see the nebari. Until I see the nebari, I’m not ready to make a final decision on planting angle. (A personal preference: I like a reasonably level nebari, because it usually looks more stable to me.)
This is only my second ponderosa, and I killed my first thru ignorance. I don’t want to kill this one, especially since it, like my first, is a Valentine-birthday-anniversary present from my lovely wife!
So I’m looking for comments, advice, feedback, especially from experienced ponderosa growers. Would it be OK to repot again this spring? Or should I slap my hands, give myself 50 lashes with wet spaghetti for even thinking of such a thing, and leave it strictly alone until 2012?
These three pictures were all taken earlier today. The first: the tree as it is right now. Second: blue line shows the length of the needles with which it came, yellow arrow shows needles that grew in the second half of 2010. Third: the three new buds that were set after I removed the terminal bud from the highest branch last fall.