Of course the leaf color doesn't look great. I had accidentally potted it originally in a mix that wasn't meant for pots. So it had a tough little life there. I think next time I am going to try really hard to find even a small spot to put it in the ground. I didn't live with this plant, I just visited when I could, so I think there'd be more margin for error in the dirt.

Questions, questions, questions (because I'm curious): What was in the 'bark mix'? What time of year did you repot it? Did you spritz the roots or did they dry out? Were there lots of healthy white roots or just brown ones? What did the leaves look like as they dropped off? It sounds like all you did was remove the old soil and replace it with the new mix--is that right? Did you scratch the trunk to see if any part of it was still green?

Also, where was it after repotting? Lots of sun, shade, rain, cold...?

Litterbuggy - you know, I can't remember now what time of year it was. I may be able to reconstruct it somehow, like maybe I posted about it here. I don't know if I had it in a bucket or not... but it could have been that I left it out in the air. The roots looked just the way they were in the photo... and I am still not a root expert. I don't know what they are supposed to look like. I didn't touch the roots -- come to think of it, I don't think I've ever trimmed roots. I didn't know about that until hanging around here.

The leaf loss seemed pretty sudden. I don't remember what they looked like... but I don't think they had dried up or anything. The bark mix was just bark and perlite... and I'm not sure if I put anything else in. (I have a bad habit of just jumping into a pot refresh and forgetting to put in the lime and the 2 weeks and all that.)

Tropicofcancer: great list!!! This plant was not doing well in its pot, so it was sort of an emergency.

I am going to have to google a root rake - I've never heard of that. Sounds like I need one. I also have not typically attached plants to the pot. I'll have to try that.

Maybe it's been too long to figure this out. I appreciate all the help though!!

Did you spray the roots with a stream setting on the sprayer? That can really do a number on those fine feeder roots.

The roots look really good....but the leaf-color indicates that it was in dire need of nutrients. How soon after repotting did you fertilize, or did you mix some fertilizer in with the bark?

Josh

Nil13: While I don't think I would have done that, I think I just rinsed it off with a nozzle over a fern bed... I probably was too rough on it. Next time I will soak the root ball in a bucket and then maybe even just swish it around gently to remove the old soil.

Josh: well, that was another mistake I made. As has sometimes occurred in my checkered plant past... I kinda panicked, bc the plant seemed to be in distress. So I just wanted it out of that bad soil and I didn't prepare enough. I have a strong feeling that I didn't fertilize at all ... believing at the time that you weren't supposed to* after a "pot refresh" (since this wasn't a real re-pot...) And I probably forgot to put in any lime or CRF. Also, I didn't know what roots were supposed to look like so I didn't know if they could handle any fert. So you think these looked okay?

Thanks to you both, so much!! The more I learn, the less likely I will do this again.

*In case anyone new reads this... I am not saying, "don't fertilize," I am just saying... that to do a real "re-pot" is a more involved procedure than what I did here.

So don't think that you are never supposed to fertilize when you put a container plant in fresh mix, either as part of a re-pot or not. That is not something I know enough about to say one way or the other.

All I am saying here is, I thought it might hurt my plant, which I was just trying to quickly rescue from bad soil. (Although maybe it turns out now, the problem was that I didn't feed it enough, not that the roots were being suffocated.)