For the method I descirbe in the article I use the jet spray, it is more surgical in that it removes only whay I intend it to remove. In the case of Pines it is better that you do not bare root them that's why I wait till I have some new roots in new soil before I go after the core of old soil and bound up roots. A side note. I have found using my planter design that it stimulates a good deal of microrhiza growth.

Come on Harrold, if you think I have posted a bogus article come out and say it.

Hi Vance,
Good article. I just don't understand why you want to wait so long to sort out a root system...if it is healthy nursery material.

Hasaki

IT depends on how you define healthy. I don't always consider totally root bound one section over another as healthy. It is a problem that has to be dealt with and I find this the best way. Do you have a better one?

Vance,
I think repotting nursery/bonsai nursery potensai material is best done on a case to case basis and can be species specific.
I would never use a knife or saw to cut 1/3 or 1/2 off the bottom of a nursery pine.

Hasaki

That's where we differ. I find the survival rate much higher if you reduce the soil mass all at once with a saw or knife the first time as opposed to trying to pry the soil mass apart with a chopstick and/or root hook. The later tends to break and tear portions of the root system you may not have intended to disturb in the first place. Once I get to this stage I use the Training Planter to start producing new roots quickly so that the future work can be done with little threat to the tree.

And of course you handle a tree on a tree by tree basis. However if you go into the nursery market here, you will find trees as I have described more often than not. My philosophy: Being able to accomplish the hard tasks, makes the easy ones much more approachable and simple. I don't write things like this to show off, I write them to teach. I have found that in all the years I have done bonsai and all the books I have read, not one of them has a comprehensive approach to this issue. They show little diagrams that issustrate the classic examples and maybe even some pictures. All of which illustrate the ideal situation. None of them deal with real world trees likely encountered in the nursery trade---at least in Michigan.

I believe if one feels confident they know how to do what others would consider impossible then I have taught them something that will allow them to grow in skill and interest. Instead of having bonsai with horrible root systems, because they just don't know how to get beyond the problems that created the paucity they settled for, they now know how to get a root system they don't have to worry about five years down the road.

I have found root systems so totally matted together that this was the ONLY WAY to get things done. I have seen Pines with root systems that were more like a root bound Azalea, they were so closely intwined.

What do you do with these trees?

You said you would not use a saw or knife. My question to you is: Have you tried it this way? I have done it the old, by the book method for years before I developed this system and I find it supperior for a variety of reasons.

Vance,
Finally got back to this thread. We have a small mountain of "root mat" circles used to fill in low spots and holes in the property. All of the San Joses and other Junipers that come in rootbound as "overgrowns" from the liner grower, all of the pines and Junipers that come in from wholesale nursery's. I originally tried sawing half wqy through the container and then cutting the other half off the following spring, lost 1 or 2 per hundred. Switched a couple of years ago to doing it all at once- lost 1 or 2 per hundred. Realize that we also do the massive foliage and wood reduction to the initial "line" at the same time. Now. not sure I would try it on certain "touchy" species, (Beech, Stewartia, etc) but here- March/April cutdowns work great. John

I have been sawing (with a serrated kitchen knife no less) the bottom off nursery potted material for 4 years now with good success.

Newt

I'm not sure I ilke this part of the article. I guess my fear of this came from doing it a few times trying to pot something up for future development and failing.

When I told the guys in my club I did this, and three of the trees died, they chuckled and gave me a good lesson in how to un-tangle roots.

I'm sure you know about un-tangling roots but I think this might give begginers a bit too much courage to go a butcher some root ysstems then wonder what happened. Like I did...

Critisism is only meant in a the most constructive way though. I like the article as a whole.

Of course I posted this Then noticed the other posts about using a saw to reduce the root mass...I don't know maybe I haven't done enough to know anything and I assuming too much, but I just feel like I had a bit too much confidence in the ability to chop off a half to one third of the root mass with a saw then watched as 3 out the four perished...

Vance, do you have photos documenting your process? I am certain it would be more illuminating to those who have had trouble in the past with nursery stock. I remember at an earlier Intensive, Boon producing a Blue Atlas cedar that was in a nursery pot of perhaps 20 gallons or more. When he sawed the bottom half of the extremely pot bound rootball off, the interior looked like a sawed tree trunk, the clay was so hard! I have photos of it somewhere at home, but with the move, it may be a while before I can post them.

And are you speaking mostly about conifers? Stefan was posting a deciduous tree, which will be handled differently. Many deciduous trees can be bare-rooted and root pruned right out of the nursery container, as I am sure you know.