Air pruning in colanders?

[eferguson1974]

I learned, or thought I learned that colanders air prune roots. It isnt so! I have bougies and ficus growing out the holes near the bottom. Is this "air pruning"?
The bougie roots are white and point down, in the center.
The twisted ficus sends out hairy roots from anywhere. Could it just be the tropics, where stuff just grows a lot? Im thinking of putting the bougie outside the greenhouse so it grows on the ground with roots growing in the ground. The ficus is fine like it is. Anyway, air doesnt kill bougie roots like Id thought. At least not like I read. Which is fine, they will grow faster. Is the air pruning for northern species?

 

[Adair M]

Colanders is a pine technique.

It's not unusual for trees to send roots out the bottom drain holes. Of any kind of pot.

If you had said your trees were sending out roots straight out the sides of the colanders, well, that would be something else!

 

[Adair M]

And don't the ficus grow air roots? Like Banyon?

I don't think the colander would have the same effect on them.

 

[M. Frary]

Colanders is a pine technique.

That works great for deciduous trees as well.

 

[eferguson1974]

Colanders is a pine technique.

It's not unusual for trees to send roots out the bottom drain holes. Of any kind of pot.

If you had said your trees were sending out roots straight out the sides of the colanders, well, that would be something else!

The ficus is!

 

[aml1014]

The ficus is!

You have enough humidity where you are for ficus to grow roots in the air wherever they please.

Aaron

 

[Adair M]

That works great for deciduous trees as well.

It works, but there's better ways to do deciduous. Deciduous don't mind being barerooted as much as pines. So, it's not as big a deal to repot them every year. So, circling roots get removed every year.

 

[Starfox]

It´s probably a good sign that your roots are reasonably healthy and pushing new growth quicker than they can dry out and both Ficus and Bougies will be thriving in your area I imagine right now.
I tend to agree with Aaron that your humidity would be more likely helping it a long.

 

[0soyoung]

I learned, or thought I learned that colanders air prune roots. It isnt so! I have bougies and ficus growing out the holes near the bottom. Is this "air pruning"?

It is just because moisture dropping out of the substrate that keeps roots growing outside the calendar/pond-basket. You can prop up the basket at bit higher so that there is more air flow underneath and probably reduce the count of 'roots out the bottom'. The working of 'air-pruning' is desiccation of the exposed roots - if conditions are such that they don't desiccate, they aren't pruned.

Of course, you can just cut the roots occasionally yourself and you'll get the same effect as air-pruning - roots don't circle around along the pot wall and root density/ramification increases closer to the trunk, all without repotting.

 

[Adair M]

Hmmm...

I wonder if the use of colanders is addressed in that Morton book with the Walter Pall pictures.

Also, I wonder if he addresses the Ebihara technique for deciduous?

@rockm. Any comment?

 

[sorce]

Yeah bro....

The strangler figs.....
The wet season....

Air pruning will work for you...except..."air" will be you and your pruners!

________

I didn't repot some of my basketized Deciduous trees...
I should have...and will every year now...

But I am glad I have them in Colanders...
So I have some feeders to cut back to.

Cutting back to nothing as Ebihara...
It's not a death sentence up here per say...
But life/vigour is definitely not garaunteed...
I need garauntees.

Sorce

 

[markyscott]

Hmmm...

I wonder if the use of colanders is addressed in that Morton book with the Walter Pall pictures.

Also, I wonder if he addresses the Ebihara technique for deciduous?

@rockm. Any comment?

No, but he does advocate this:

"Raking out the roots is unnecessarily damaging and significantly stressful to the plant. There's no need to "pull all the roots free from one another and shake out all the soil." Shave or prune anything that doesn't quite fit into the initial training pot. Instead of trying to tease the roots out with a for or stick, shave the edges of the exterior roots. Simply peel down the outer, thickened layer of roots on the bottom with a knife, scissors, or saw. The shaving technique is much more effective than the teasing-out technique."

He quotes a university study - I can give the reference if anyone is interested. He does not address the benefits of growing a radial, surface root system at all or how to go about accomplishing this with the shaving technique, as far as I can tell. He just seems to argue that one should simply shave the sides and bottom of the root ball until it's dimensions are sufficient to fit in the pot. He does not make a distinction between tropicals, deciduous, broadleaf evergreen, or conifer. As far as I can tell, this is the only root pruning technique that he advocates for. I haven't seen any discussion of colanders or planting on a board - that would be hard to accomplish with his shaving technique.

I'd be curious to see some of Mr. Morton's bonsai. I wish that he'd included them in the book. Although I really admire many of Walter's trees, including his own healthy, beautiful bonsai that he'd grown for many years using the techniques he advocates in the book would be a stronger argument for his practices than including pictures of trees belonging someone else who doesn't entirely agree with the views he is promoting. With reference to the quote above, he might be right from a purely horticultural perspective (I haven't yet read the paper he referenced). But as an art form, some things in bonsai are done for reasons other than strict adherence to the best horticultural practice. The objective of a nurseryman might be to maximize growth season to season. The objective of the Ebihara technique is to produce a great nebari and surface root system for aesthetic, not horticultural, reasons.

Anyway, I'm still reading through it, so this is not a complete review.

Scott

 

[rockm]

[

Hmmm...

I wonder if the use of colanders is addressed in that Morton book with the Walter Pall pictures.

Also, I wonder if he addresses the Ebihara technique for deciduous?

@rockm. Any comment?

Nope. Done talking about the book. People can read it for themselves.

FWIW, I hardly agree with everything in it. I think, however, that the most important thing about it is it might get people to actually think about what they're doing, instead of just doing it because someone said it's the way to do it, because of some time-worn superstition or overhyped product literature.

 

[eferguson1974]

Yeah bro....

The strangler figs.....
The wet season....

Air pruning will work for you...except..."air" will be you and your pruners!

________

I didn't repot some of my basketized Deciduous trees...
I should have...and will every year now...

But I am glad I have them in Colanders...
So I have some feeders to cut back to.

Cutting back to nothing as Ebihara...
It's not a death sentence up here per say...
But life/vigour is definitely not garaunteed...
I need garauntees.

Sorce

The ficus thats the craziest is the twisted one I bought. I hacked of a bunch of branches, to see what I had and plant cuttings since its the only one like it Ive seen. Its backbudding so much its crazy. I put it in a coffee basket, like a laundry basket. Hairy roots are coming outa everywhere. Idk the species but I think its an Asian strangler. The native ones dont grow so fast.

 

[armetisius]

No, but he does advocate this:

"Raking out the roots is unnecessarily damaging and significantly stressful to the plant. There's no need to "pull all the roots free from one another and shake out all the soil." Shave or prune anything that doesn't quite fit into the initial training pot. Instead of trying to tease the roots out with a for or stick, shave the edges of the exterior roots. Simply peel down the outer, thickened layer of roots on the bottom with a knife, scissors, or saw. The shaving technique is much more effective than the teasing-out technique."

He quotes a university study - I can give the reference if anyone is interested. He does not address the benefits of growing a radial, surface root system at all or how to go about accomplishing this with the shaving technique, as far as I can tell. He just seems to argue that one should simply shave the sides and bottom of the root ball until it's dimensions are sufficient to fit in the pot. He does not make a distinction between tropicals, deciduous, broadleaf evergreen, or conifer. As far as I can tell, this is the only root pruning technique that he advocates for. I haven't seen any discussion of colanders or planting on a board - that would be hard to accomplish with his shaving technique.

I'd be curious to see some of Mr. Morton's bonsai. I wish that he'd included them in the book. Although I really admire many of Walter's trees, including his own healthy, beautiful bonsai that he'd grown for many years using the techniques he advocates in the book would be a stronger argument for his practices than including pictures of trees belonging someone else who doesn't entirely agree with the views he is promoting. With reference to the quote above, he might be right from a purely horticultural perspective (I haven't yet read the paper he referenced). But as an art form, some things in bonsai are done for reasons other than strict adherence to the best horticultural practice. The objective of a nurseryman might be to maximize growth season to season. The objective of the Ebihara technique is to produce a great nebari and surface root system for aesthetic, not horticultural, reasons.

Anyway, I'm still reading through it, so this is not a complete review.

Scott

The entry you reference is one of the few footnotes in the book. It references
a study done on 7 specific species and whether or not they developed better
root systems in the ground after planting. The method outlined recommends
"shaving" off the outside and bottom of a root ball to remove any circling/crossing
roots and allowing the "new" roots to enter the new root zone squarely and securely
thereby establishing more efficiently and effectively for the future of the tree in situ.

It has about as much to do with bonsai as the color underwear I have on today does.

 

[coh]

This is exactly why I was questioning his background in the other thread. It sounds like he is often repeating field research - or research devoted to growing container plants for the nursery industry - and not really considering the implications for growing bonsai specifically. I see that in the discussion about cut paste, and now regarding roots. It's nice to know this stuff, and have it all in one book...but the application to bonsai seems questionable, at least for some of it. Didn't Walter say he only completely agreed with about half the content?

Maybe someone will be selling it at the National show and I can take a look. Not interested in buying based on what I've seen here so far.

 

[armetisius]

This is exactly why I was questioning his background in the other thread. It sounds like he is often repeating field research - or research devoted to growing container plants for the nursery industry - and not really considering the implications for growing bonsai specifically. . . the application to bonsai seems questionable, at least for some of it.
Didn't Walter say he only completely agreed with about half the content?. . . Not interested in buying based on what I've seen here so far.

I thought I made that amply clear in my review of the book in the other
thread.
Things have changed considerably since we were in college. Now
a professor/instructor states what the text will be and that he/she has
issued a set of lecture notes for his/her class that is also stocked at the
university bookstore. You pick them up for an extra $29.99 (or more)/course
and there is the implied agreement that "if it ain't in my notes it won't be on
the exam."
Cliff Notes of what this instructor feels is the essentials of the subject.

This book is a good set of notes clearly with about the first year, maybe more,
of ornamental horticulture course notes; they have been put in a nifty format
for the gardener but most of it is geared to nursery stock production. And perhaps
I didn't make it clear. The way that it is statement driven it is also clear that
only the loosest of correlations are being drawn between the text and bonsai
practice in a practical way.

. . . Didn't Walter say he only completely agreed with about half the content?. . .

After you've covered remedial soils/fertilizer/watering/insects you have
covered more than half the book. Some things you must agree with like,
"water is wet."

I would send mine back except I can't find a button that says
"because it is a POS/Waste of money."

 

[armetisius]

The entry you reference is one of the few footnotes in the book. It references
a study done on 7 specific species and whether or not they developed better
root systems in the ground after planting. The method outlined recommends
"shaving" off the outside and bottom of a root ball to remove any circling/crossing
roots and allowing the "new" roots to enter the new root zone squarely and securely
thereby establishing more efficiently and effectively for the future of the tree in situ.

It has about as much to do with bonsai as the color underwear I have on today does.

Forgot to include the link to the article he references:
ALWAYS back check a reference. In this case I think
his correlation between the sourced material and bonsai
is tenuous at best. Read the abstract of what the article
actually addresses HERE.

 

[coh]

Wow. So basically he's saying if you take a plant in a nursery container and want to put it into a larger nursery container, you first cut off the sides of the root system to eliminate the circling roots that developed in the first container. Then the roots should grow outward until they hit the container, whereupon they'll start circling again. So you'll avoid having a circling root system buried deep within another circling root system. Who can argue against that? Except that it's not quite the same as developing the nebari on a bonsai, where you may want/need to keep adjusting those surface roots as the tree develops. Just a little misleading.

 

[Adair M]

Forgot to include the link to the article he references:
ALWAYS back check a reference. In this case I think
his correlation between the sourced material and bonsai
is tenuous at best. Read the abstract of what the article
actually addresses HERE.

The term used was "shaving off " the roots around the outside of the rootball. Now THERE's a term open for interpretation!

The referenced article was discussing up potting nursery stock from small to larger nursery cans!

Wow! That's something that applies to bonsai!

NOT!!!

We're usually doing JUST THE OPPOSITE!!! We are downsizing pots! Especially when we take nursery stock grown in nurseryman's soil and then want to transfer the tree into bonsai soil!

Folks, I'm telling you: bonsai is different than gardening, it's different than forestry. Gardeners and arborists are well intentioned, but don't understand bonsai.

To set the record straight: "shaving" the bottom of the root ball is a good idea. Because we DON'T want roots growing straight down. Roots that are in a shaved rootball are reluctant to leave the rootball and grow into an open medium like hood bonsai soil.

On the sides, however, we DO want to tease out 1/2 inch of fine roots so that its fuzzy. Then, when we backfill with new open bonsai soil, the roots will be already in it! We chopstick to make sure the soil is in good contact with the roots and there are no sir pockets. Don't chopstick too much or you could damage the fine roots. Do just enough. Now, the roots won't have to move from the old rootball into new soil, they're already in it!