If you only need a little soil, you can use ReptiBark, which is small fir bark you can get at most pet stores. You can usually find Turface MVP or Turface Allsport (or Schultz Aquatic Soil at pet stores). It's all the same product. Try John Deere Landscapes for the Allsport. And Manna-Pro chicken grit can be had at rural feed stores that cater to farmers and people who keep fowl. Make sure you screen the fines out of the Turface over aluminum window screen, and screen the dust out of the bark and the grit. Mixing the 3 ingredients is a good place to start. If you want more water retention, increase the Turface and decrease the grit. For less water retention, do the opposite. If you keep the bark at 1/3 of the o/a volume or less, the soil will never collapse (structurally). Read the link I left above and make sure you understand how water behaves in soils. It's an essential part of getting to a place in bonsai where you can start working on the artistic aspects. Again - the horticultural aspects come first. If you can't keep your trees alive and happy, frustration will get you, and it's over in the corner now, doing pushups. Ask as many questions as you need to ask until you fully understand. Al

Susan, Here is how to post a picture if you have one on your computer. If this is too complicated then don't bother. But thanks no matter what. Posting a picture from your photo hosting account (e.g., PhotoBucket, Flickr) First, where are your pictures? If on your computer only, you'll need to upload them somewhere on the web for the rest of us to see them. I upload pictures to PhotoBucket. Open an account w/PhotoBucket or other photo hosting site. Take a picture using a digital camera (or film camera but get them on disk when they're developed) Resize your pics so they're not too big, generally no more than 400x300 (or 300x400) (resize keeping the same proportions so they don't get distorted...i.e., don't specify a specific size, use %-ages or similar)*****[You can also often resize pictures at your photo hosting site, but it's faster to do on your computer] Upload your pictures to your photo account Find the label that contains the link to the picture (In PhotoBucket, it's the box labeled "HTML Code") Copy that link and paste it into the "Message" box of a post. When you "Preview" your message, you will see the picture.

Exposing roots of woody plants is not generally harmful Microsoft Word - B&B #29 - fragile roots.doc (wsu.edu) although of course those specific kinds that are more sensitive to drying out than usual should be kept moist while denuded and replanted as quickly as possible. With one experiment investigating effects of bare rooting using a set of much used deciduous tree species finding a range between quite intolerant sweetgum through intermediate in tolerance ash to little leaf linden apparently being able to sit out of the ground for an extended period and then grow away again pretty much as though nothing had happened. Regarding small transplants of forest conifers in particular there is a history of those kinds being used for timber plantations to be carried through the site in a bare rooted condition by workers doing replanting by hand. With of course there not being any home gardening style aftercare like watering immediately after planting involved.

" There is also a very large, and interesting plantation of them in Maui, not the southeast, but still a really warm humid climate" Nope! Wrong again! The redwoods there are mostly planted above 5000', a climate where dewpoints are always << 60F, thus nights are going to be in the 50s at worse, and even 30s and 40s in winter. Highs probably never hit 80f, even during the worst heatwaves. Not at all a "really warm humid climate". A few are a bit lower, down to 3000', but their growth seems to become abnormal. Even there, summer are as cool or cooler than Boston's!