Hi everyone, Quite different here : the total rain amount for May so far is 21.3 mm, not to mention a cold North-East wind for the past 3 days, maples don't like it at all...
I know we had a few sporadic down pours forecast, these have not materialised for me.. but often it doesn’t contribute much towards the potted trees in any case.. re repotting TBH I’ve been slip potting with a little loosening round the sides and bottom over the past few weeks..will you be doing any root pruning now?
I wouldn't. Too late or too early (here). I sometimes repot maples in mid-June, especially when it's rainy and warm enough (like in Japan), and root-prune them, but not as hard as I do when I repot in Feb/March. In that case, I don't prune the top part, the branches, or very lightly.
Yes, if needed, mild to moderate root pruning. Probably wouldn't risk ultra extreme levels of root pruning at this time of year. (like @AlainK said!) Only caveat is to avoid heatwaves etc. The rationale for repotting and/or root pruning at this time of year is that root growth hasn't properly started yet, but now the first flush of canopy growth is fully extended the maple is just about to go into a major root elongation phase and will establish in the new potting medium more quickly. (Interesting experiment - revisit a maple repotted in early spring at this time of year and you will likely find the rootball is exactly the same size as at time of repotting and not established at all in the new soil area.)
10 days here now of 28C t0 35C. this was after a cooler and wetter spring then normal. Everything is exploding in the garden. Even the Romaine lettuce is now ready to eat. Will cool off this weekend and then looks like seasonal temps. Doing a big reno right now so our sandpoint well pump is disconected for the past 3 weeks. Only watering the container pots with our "city" water until pump gets reconnected ( hopefully May 24 - 25th). We have a large series of underground water lines only connected to the sandpoint well so many areas of the garden could use a drink!
That's why I do the majority of potting up in June, extending until the second flush of leaves. This has been a successful strategy for me. But it continues to be quite cold, down to around 5 at night, so as Alain says the maples aren't very happy about it. The pink types are getting some of that leaf blackening that we all dread. I got a Taylor, by accident, and it's survived so far by being ignored and left in the sun, but not sure it will make it much further! Indeed, only around 28mm so far this month, not nearly enough.
We have had less than 7 mm of rain here in May so far. In April we got total ca 20 mm, that is significantly less than normal. My water reserves are exhausted for now, despite they were largest ever (I used the snow, that was piled up on my figs for winter protection to keep my 5 m3 of water reservoires full of water as long as possible). I purchased another 6 m3 of water reservoire in May, but lack of rain has not provided a chanche to fill it up yet. They predict 0.1mm of rainfall this week.
Hot : 24°C, and very little wind. Very dry, and it will be like that for the next two weeks if I can trust "Météo France"... (To me, above 22°C, it's "hot", above 28-30, it's almost unbearable !)
