每日吃瓜

SOS folks, I've really messed up my tree....

So I picked up this cute little chinese pepper tree whilst traveling. I've brought it home and since the trunk is perfectly woody and thick ( about as thick as a straw ) for a mame bonsai, I thought I give it a go. The tree has 5 branches, all woody and full of green leaves. I can see the start of some of the fruit there, or perhaps flowers.

Now, the problem; I cleaned up the roots and God, it was a mess. It was pot bound, very vigorous roots, and a lot. It had a taproot that fully circled around the pot. Again, very very vigorous, tons of small roots too.. but I haven't cleaned it good and I didn't see that all the smaller roots are attached to the tap root. So I cut the taproot in half and... The tree came out clean....

Now the whole tree only has 4 small roots coming from different angles... I've really messed this up.... So, immediately I've prepared a growing pot and used rooting powder. Removed about 20% of the leafs to reduce transportation and some stress. Also wrapped the pot in some foil to keep the mositure in and heat as it is winter here. I've put it in the house now where the temp is 15+ celsius.

The tree still has many leafs, should I remove even more just to leave a couple of pairs on each branches? I don't know much about this species, will it produce root easily? Is it a fast grower? Please advise.

Your tree has very few leaves from what I can tell. Do not remore more. I hope you are aware that each leaf consists of a little 'stem' and many side-leaves?

For next time: Do not put rooting hormone on cut roots. your plant knows it is growing roots. Adding hormine will nog help it. In fact, it will disturb the balance locally and might reduce the rootingspeed.

Best you can do now is to leave it alone. Put it in a place where the roots are warm and the leaves get lots of light. Keep evenly moist and wait.