Need help with my elm thats been overly root pruned

dustin

Greetings,
Ive posted over the last few days about me bringing home a Texas Cedar Elm from a nursery in Dallas. Here where I stand. The tree is a large one, about 2.5 feet tall, and was in a plastic container in what looked like sandy mud. It was very healthy despite my opinion on the soil.

Since I had to take it on the plane I wanted to remove soil to lighten it and I knew I was going to repot as soon as I was home. The dude helping me took a pair of hand held shears and cut the root ball in half. I didnt say much and knew the elm could handle a prune.

Well once I began to remove the soil and repot it became clear that this had removed about 60% of the roots. I know this because many of the wrap around roots had ends left in the soil. So I cut no additional roots off, just pulled out all the cuttings. This left me with what looked like a tap root with feeders off it and two other long roots with feeders. Plus a big lump of feeders near the trunk. Either way, it came clear to me that I had lost up to 75% of the root mass.

I planted it in good free draining soil and removed about 50% of the leaves and placed it in the shade. Today I removed more of the leaves as they had begun to wilt and shrivel. Im now down to saying that I think I have 25% of the roots and 25% of the foilage left on the tree. Just to the point that removing large amounts of the root mass and not an equal amount of foilage is bad news right.

Im not happy at all with its current state and can only hope the tree can pull through. Im spraying the leaves hoping they can absorb some of it, a root casting foilage feeder spray. Anyways, I would greatly appreciate any advice on mending this tree. Ive read that they can handle severe root pruning but it looks like it might dump all its foilage in the next few days...

Any advice appreciated

__________________
"Every body routines in a state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it"
-Sir Isaac Newton

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drewhart

it should be fine. i have been unable to kill an elm.

dustin

Thanks for the reassurance. I went to great lengths to get this tree back with me, not even to mention my own issues with losing the tree. We shall see...

__________________
"Every body routines in a state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it"
-Sir Isaac Newton