IsomJ1

I'm looking for some suggestions/hints/tricks/lessons learned....I have purchased a number of nursery plants this year and have found that as get into the process of combing out the roots - they are an absolute mess. Unfortunately, I don't have ready access to wild trees (alps, rockies, or even smokies) or even field grown; so am stuck with nursery stock. Saturday I spent over 2 hours trying to comb the roots out on a Mugho pine. This was a 3 gallon tree with a really nice trunk AND what appeared to be a fairly good nebari. However, when I got it home and actually got working on it I discovered that the roots circled and intertined so bad there was no way to completely get them straightend. I did the best that I could, but I know it will probably take some more serious work again (maybe twice more) in the future just to get the roots into decent shape. Is there some trick to this that I'm simply not aware of? Is there some way to tell in advance - I mean I dig down with my fingers as far as I can while at the nursery, but it isn't always that obvious. This is not a one-time thing either. Every tree I've purchased this year with any trunk size at all seems to have this problem. HELP!

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Jeff Isom
Cleveland, OH / Sunset Zone 39

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