gregb

You ask a good question, especially for this time of year. I think I have seen some of what you are talking about and my answer would be it depends. It depends on the species, the time of year, the age of the tree, how established as a bonsai it is, etc.

Trees chosen for re-potting demos usually are well established bonsai that have been potted in a proper soil and cared for in such a manner that yields a dense fibrous root system. The roots at the bottom of the pot have begun to coil and it looks like a mess of spaghetti when taken out of the pot. One starts at the bottom to disentangle these roots then works the sides, then the bottom some more. It may seem rough at some point in the process, but where we want to be very careful is with those little feeder roots that are close to the base of the trunk, which are almost always raked carefully towards the end of the process. I have washed roots in the past but find that they still need to be disentangled and trimmed. Washing them makes a muddy mess and a step I feel unnecessary. Others will disagree. One spring I washed practically everything with the exception of my pines. I lost some nice junipers this way.