For the last three years I have used a slight variation of Vance's method with excellent results. With fresh nursery material that is root bound, the very first thing I do is to saw the root ball in two, depending on the species, I will take from 30% to 50% off. Then I rake out the roots, on some species, just the outer edges, and pot in a screen sided pot.

I recently did this on a root bound Mugho. I removed 50% of the roots mass with a saw, raked out just the edges and re potted in a pond basket all in early July. The tree looks as though nothing was done to it, not so much as a sagging needle. The trees I have done this with in previous years are also healthy, back budding, and thriving.

This techniques makes quick work of a tough job and has caused no ill effects for me. As a person who has seen Vance's collection of bonsai first hand, I can attest to the extreme health and vigor of his trees also. Although I must have looked pretty silly just standing there with my mouth hanging open, notknowing which bonsai to look at first, they were all so beautiful and healthy.

Vance is a bonsaist who has many, not just two or three mind you, but many quality award winning bonsai that would grace any show. I personally listen when he gives advice, even though I was also one who scoffed at mid summer re-potting of mughos and other pines. Now that I have put my preconceptions aside and actually tried it, I wouldn't treat mine any other way.

Thanks again Vance for sharing your knowledge, it was informative, well wrote and very accurate, thank you.


Will Heath

To clarify, the tree in the picture of my first post in this thread was the Japanese Maple from this thread on root rot. I wouldn't do this to a tree that has some value to me without being very certain the tree could take it and there is a good reason for doing it at all.

Stefan

I have done this with Japanese Maples, and Hornbeams with no problems. I know what I have posted is conrtoversial, but I am not forcing anyone to do it. If any of you have a better program I challenge you to write it up and post it like I have, I would love to see your ideas and techniques.

Of course you can lose trees doing this, you can lose trees doing in any other way, you can lose trees by not doing it at all and just let the tree die a slow death through self strangulation. If you have a method for untangeling a root system write it up and explane it. If you have lost a tree doing it this way describe what you did, when you did it and what you did it to (species of tree), and the kind of after care it was given.

And yes I can post pictures of me sawing the bottom off a tree but what good will that do? In fact that is exactly how I treated my contest tree and it is still alive, ask Will he has seen it. How many of you that entered the tree styling contest still have the trees you styled and, in most cases, potted?

Both entries from the last two years are still alive and kicking as I have posted in other threads.

Both were repotted into screened baskets at the time of restyling and both were treated in the manner that Vance describes.


Will

Thank you Will, I appreciate your support. Just a sort of side question to all of you out there in bonsai land.

Can any of you tell me what book gives you the kind of details on root work that I have tried to provide good, bad, or indifferent?

Personally? None. Books show neatly pruned Bonsai in pots with immaculate roots. And I think that is a shame, because there really is little info on this subject out there.

You can find all the horticultural info on any plant easily, but very little on root pruning. And having to prune a root bound nursery plant is about the first thing you encounter when starting out in Bonsai and an easy way to kill your tree if you don't know what you are doing.

This thread is already well on it way to become the most comprehensive info I've found on the subject.

Take places like BCI or Bonsai4me, all have good info on plant culture, pruning, watering, soil mixes the usual, but nowhere do you find any info on how severely you can actually root prune a given species.

And then the quality of the info you do find. Compare at least three website and then try to figure out what in all the contradicting statements can be applied to your own situation, figure out how things apply to your climate & growing conditions, and maybe just maybe you walk away with something useful.

hm, sorry for the rant...
I'm slowly starting to realize just how much experience and simply knowing your own trees are actually worth.

Stefan

Stefan: I appreciate your comments. I hope others will think about this issue and at least try my approach at least once. At any rate there is, I think, a good deal of information to chew on here that, if it does not fit your situation you/anybody will be able to sort things out and apply what is relevant to them.

Well, I have seen pictures of sawing off half the root ball in Bonsai Today Magazine (can't remember which issue). Also I did just that at a quince workshop with Chase Rosade. I have also done it the long way, un-tangled the roots only to cut half of them off anyway.

thanks for the article Vance.
walt

Thanks Walt, that's my point, why ravage a root system when it is far less stressfull to remove things in the first place. The less traumatized roots that remain are far more likely to produce new roots quickly than the remaining roots that may be torn and broken.

Vance,
I also think that Chris's comment about sawing through a root ball with Boon and finding a solid core of (my words) petrified clay is exactly the reason to go to the heart of it and get rid of that sterile, hostile and death promoting junk at the base of the tree.

I have atached a couple of pictures of trident maples we dug in December- root balls weighed several hundred pounds each- unmoveable by one or two persons whenset down. Irrigation pump. hi pressure nozzle and "voila" we go 106 of em in the trailer. Absolutely soil free. Some will say "but those are tridents"- we do cypress, pines (with less pressure), Japanese maples, Horbeams, quince, Crape myrtles and junipers the same way. From the ground and from balled and burlap and nasty big plastic pots. John

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