When grooming trailers, consider what you do to single crown plants. You need to remove the older, outer row of leaves. The same thing is true with trailers. Left on the plant, these leaves will block the light from new crowns growing in the center and and make the plant look dull. Yes, this can be a lot of work on a large plant, and you will find you need to remove a LOT of leaves.
This is Amadie Trail, a miniature trailer. It was growing in a 4 inch pot here, but that was 2 months ago and the plant is past its prime in this pot and ready for a 5 inch pan pot. I don't have any 'secrets' when it comes to trailers, but if I had to name one essential tool for success, it would be the 5 inch pan pot. Trailers love shallow pots. I work hard at getting a good, full shape in a 5" pan pot. After I have that, it is just a matter of consistent grooming and potting up into bigger pan pots.
Here is Amadie Trail right before repotting, still in a 4 inch pot.
The 4 inch pot is taller than the 5 inch pan pot, so I need to trim the roots. I will just slice off the bottom inch or so with a sharp knife.
I will gently work away some of the soil from the root ball, especially the top layer. My 5 " pan pots always get two wicks. Fresh soil is added all around.
Finally, I need to remove leaves in the center of the plant. This serves two functions -lets light into the crown, allowing smaller new crowns to grow, and gets rid of older, dull leaves
Now the plant is in fresh soil, and ready to put out new growth. Because the plant needs to grow both new roots to fill the larger out and new leaves on all the newly exposed crowns, growth may be slow for the first month. We'll take a look at the plant in the fall to see how it is doing.
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