At Ikadabuki there's always parts of your nebari or roots in general that point upwards or out of the soil (exception: breaking the trunk). With Kalanchoe, it isn't possible to 90° turn the trunk and roots (killing half of the roots, all that face out of the soil), chop its head off AND repot into wholly new medium and expect it to grow vigorously and bring forth 3+ healthy branches, it just wouldn't have the strength for that. Kalanchoes are strong and unkillable in many ways, but if you expect perfect growth it gets hairy. So, this one grew sideways facing the sun, crawling over the soil instead of upwards and then being thrown on its side afterwards to create the raft.
1.5 years of improvised, unsupervised growing, and it kinda worked. When I chopped it off and put it into that new pot, I preserved the angle of the roots in relation to the stem, meaning that the stem faced slightly upwards. I waited two weeks for the roots to get a firm hold of the new soil to then start working on bending the stem, with the roots as small anchor in the soil.
So now today I wired it down and got the whole stem laying on the soil, before it was hovering above the soil supported by the counterweight of soil on the roots. (See pic in post above)
I increased the tension on the wire and put a cushion pad on the front end of the stem too. Then put some more moist crushed expanded clay onto the roots. Those roots at the back grow horizontally in relation to the soil surface already, meaning there's none of the desirable upwards pointing roots that look like the tree was uprooted and left laying on its side. But as said, I can't have those roots pointing upwards while repotting though, they would just die off instead of growing downwards again and into the soil.
Brown being the soil, black plant's original parts including roots and part of the stem. Pink the growth I'd like to have, with roots growing out and down instead of just outwards from the laying stem as if it has always been laying on its side.
So yea, it's a strange solution to that problem but... once the feeder roots grew through that medium (which will be the main spot for watering), the structural roots and aerial roots will follow soon. And once the feeder roots moved on a bit and it's all thick structural roots inside of that heap of clay, I can remove it bit by bit, hardening the roots with air exposure.
Finished roots over there should resemble more this:
with roots that recovered and grew downwards again after being in the air, than roots of a plant that grew sideways sunwards.
I've taken inspiration from this cedar raft style bonsai among others.
(don't mind that copyright thingy across those tree pics, they're not mine but I can't make garden.org do the watermark for one pic in a post and not for the other)
So now today I wired it down and got the whole stem laying on the soil, before it was hovering above the soil supported by the counterweight of soil on the roots. (See pic in post above)
I increased the tension on the wire and put a cushion pad on the front end of the stem too. Then put some more moist crushed expanded clay onto the roots. Those roots at the back grow horizontally in relation to the soil surface already, meaning there's none of the desirable upwards pointing roots that look like the tree was uprooted and left laying on its side. But as said, I can't have those roots pointing upwards while repotting though, they would just die off instead of growing downwards again and into the soil.
Brown being the soil, black plant's original parts including roots and part of the stem. Pink the growth I'd like to have, with roots growing out and down instead of just outwards from the laying stem as if it has always been laying on its side.
with roots that recovered and grew downwards again after being in the air, than roots of a plant that grew sideways sunwards.
I've taken inspiration from this cedar raft style bonsai among others.
