Cleaning up nursery bought Hinoki

[pandacular]

I haven’t worked on hinoki, but my experience with nursery trees is that there’s usually a ring of high roots above the first, thick set of roots on a tree of this size. I always start my repots removing soil from the top, find those roots, and then go up from the bottom. This prevents the issue of starting from the bottom, then realizing there were no roots in the first few inches of soil, and now you’ve removed more roots/soil than planned.

Only when I have a decent idea of where my roots start do I start cutting them.

 

[Paradox]

Really? Wow that’s nice to hear. I would love to move the tree into a training pot at least and changing the soil.

On another note, in your opinion, do you think there are possibly thicker roots below where the trunk splits into three in the second photo?

I also agree the tree is not pot bound.
I just repotted a nursery Hinoki and the root ball looked very similar to yours. You can CAREFULLY dig around some of those surface roots to check if there is more trunk below the split but I would refrain from cutting those top roots unless you find a second layer of roots. I think you probably won't though.

 

[Matt3839]

I also agree the tree is not pot bound.
I just repotted a nursery Hinoki and the root ball looked very similar to yours. You can CAREFULLY dig around some of those surface roots to check if there is more trunk below the split but I would refrain from cutting those top roots unless you find a second layer of roots. I think you probably won't though.

Ah ok. Well I’ll take a peak but maybe better to wait till next spring. I just want to make sure there were no large roots before inserting wire in the soil for the main trunk. Thanks for the help!