Help with large, 2y/o BC-in-development? 4' trunk sporting 4' leader-primary, heavily root-bound, uncertain when&how to approach :/

[SU2]

It took tree-climbing/cutting (going full-in on a new trade, while still working obviously) to keep me away from my nursery long-enough to see just how amazing "yamadori-development" can go when your specimen are girthy and you just let them run for >1yr, only providing them good husbandry(high fert, irrigation, pH balance, old-wire-removals etc) but otherwise un-tending any growth...but now I've got a problem, my favorite BC - also my largest - was put-off the longest and, while this ~4' tall stump sports a ~3.5+ foot leader-primary (and is rapidly closing its chop-wound from collection in 2018) that I'm very happy/impressed with, I realize that as summer goes-on and the top has really begun to take-off from zero intervention, that it's already root-bound as hell inside the same mortar-mixing tub I put it in ~1.5yrs+ ago after I'd gotten it to 'take to container life' post-collection.

So it's just a big nasty mangled&twisted rootmass, and the top's growth is exploding....I want to see the top's growth continue, could close that wound by next winter or sooner at this rate, but fear I'd end up with such a terribly entangled rootplate that fixing it would take forever(or kill it, if I tried it in 1 go....for the large yamma's I did process this year, I've found the Red Maples take to aggressive root-prunes almost as good as any ficus/bougie, but have had a close-call with a BC and I thought I was being "moderate" not "aggressive" and it shed like 3/4th of its foliage, taking over a month to get back to healthy growth. FWIW I stopped doing "matching canopy-prunes" when doing any root-work, the tree drops foliage/droops a bit but always seem to shrug it off super quick, but my 1st big BC root-reduction didn't go like that it really seemed that guy was gonna die I had it under shade-cloth for weeks to block the minimal un-shaded/direct sunlight that was getting to its spot[wasn't something you could just move back&forth!)

Thanks for any advice/input, am plenty confident with all my other big yamma's but still have my biggest&favorite BC, as well my 2nd-favorite, to go and they've got the worst ratio of "massive top // badly rootbound" and I don't know if I should be defoliating them with their rootprunes, or pruning shoots when I do the roots, or simply set-up things so that, post rootwork, the specimen spends his coming months in a non-sun location (if so, I'm picturing an area that gets maybe 1/4th day's filtered-sunlight, and having shade-cloth-coverings in-between the BC's//the sun!)

pics for relative-comparison, both done about 1-->1.5mo ago:
Red Maple, around 90% reduction to rootplate and none to the top, the top wilted and ~1/10th of its growing-tips fell, but by the time they actually fell-off the next-nodes-down were rapidly pumping me a new pair of growing tips for every one that I'd lost, it's now exploding with growth again:

BC I did the same week, FAR less aggressively and the BC's position was maybe 2/3rds the sunlight of that Maple's...also did nothing to the top, and removed maybe 2/3rds of the roots(def not >75%) to this:
[that's final-pic, didn't wash the roots or anything]
...and it seemed, for a good 1-->1.5wks post-prune, that I was gonna lose it...thankfully it recovered, about 50-->70% of its stems have bounced-back and are vigorously-vegetating again, but I did that rootwork expecting I'd have to do finer work next season (ie wasting growth-time by doing 2 interventions), if I should've been half-as-aggressive then it'd be a 3+ session process to fix the roots of my most-rootbound BC's...gah if only I'd had them all in pond-bags/grow-bags, would love a good retail source or DIY tip as I'm currently trying everything from burlap to shade-cloth for DIY, aerial-root-pruning containers, but each one is a PITA custom piece would love to just buy in bulk!!)

 

[SU2]

Oh and FWIW, while my thread's Q is for several large BC's in same situation (2 of which are among my favorite specimen in my garden), I did snap pics of the big guy I used as-example in my OP ^

Here's my tallest guy:

angled-down shot (standing on chair)

shot of his chop-wound, this is the most rollover (volume-wise, not relatively, Ficus wins there!) that I've ever grown on trunk-chopped materials, wish I could find a pic of it post-collection but it was an overly-sloped cut and just so much wound, thought for a while "I may need to work-around its chop-wound-flaw, work it so that wound is the 'back' of my specimen" but 360deg aesthetic is all I'm interested in IF there's a possibility of it, and the past ~1.5yrs has shown me how quickly a leader (and corresponding callousing/wound-closure) can girth-up if left fully-alone, only problem w/ that idea is IF you don't use containers that aerially-prune your roots, you're simultaneously growing an awesome top while growing a mess in-container that you're gonna have to fix sooner or later, and later = harder to do & harder on the plant! Chop-wound shot:

chop-from-side:

[edited-in: I'd kept side-primaries near that wound growing solely to help fatten that area-- is it time for me to remove them? Am kinda expecting their removal & subsequent wounding will "finish-off" what I'd grown them for in the 1st place, don't want the base of the leader-primary threatened by inverse-taper here or just ugly/no-taper trunk lengths, the trunk - as collected - had a nice taper to the chop-wound!]

I've poked-around in the container but didn't need to to know this much vegetation means corresponding roots, and w/o air-pruned roots it means mangled/twisted roots......and now I see BC's can't take "root-prune shock" the way I'd expected them to based on their above-ground-resiliency :/ Thanks again for any&all advice, gonna tag @Mellow Mullet in particular as I think my approach to development is copied/inspired from his more than any other individual grower/artist, however @BillsBayou and the guy who sells freshly-collected BC yamma's online were big for me when first getting into BC's, happy to hear from anyone but figured tagging some of those I know know the most seems prudent ;D )

 

[SU2]

Nada?

FWIW I've found that, in trying to speed-up the closure of trunk wounding(trunk-chops) by leaving extra 'sacrifice' primaries by its site, is something you've reallllly gotta watch before you find yourself looking at your closing chop-wounds only to realize that, when closed in such manner, they're going to have inverse taper at the wounding site once it's closed! Will never try running sacrifice-primaries on BC chop-wounds again, have 2 specimen that may get some inverse taper I'll have to fight-back somehow...

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Nada?

FWIW I've found that, in trying to speed-up the closure of trunk wounding(trunk-chops) by leaving extra 'sacrifice' primaries by its site, is something you've reallllly gotta watch before you find yourself looking at your closing chop-wounds only to realize that, when closed in such manner, they're going to have inverse taper at the wounding site once it's closed! Will never try running sacrifice-primaries on BC chop-wounds again, have 2 specimen that may get some inverse taper I'll have to fight-back somehow...

I didn't comment because I don't have any experience with this species. Also, it is hard to know what exactly you are asking for because there are a lot of run-on sentences without any specific questions tied to them; more like a flow-of-consciousness piece. Perhaps just post one or two bullet point questions?

 

[SU2]

Sorry to be more clear/concise, my favorite BC has spent far too-long in a masonry-mixing-tub, it is rootbound-as-hell. It also hasn't had its canopy touched in a while, and its 4' tall trunk has leader-primaries standing like 3.5' above that....it is a massively-imbalanced canopy-to-roots "volume"/"mass" issue, this thing can be soaked with water (it is not in fast-drain mix by any means in fact it's in water-retentive mix/substrate) and even on a cloudy day it 'drinks it dry' faster than anything in my garden. Post #2 has pics of this big BC, I know I have to intervene (and that it could be in multiple stages, or another time) but wanna get on it sooner than later since rootboundedness just gets worse over time.

Since my canopy is "outpacing" its rootbound, gnarly rootplate I wanna get-in-there and do at-least a "half strength" rootpruning, but what I'm thinking -- and hoping for advice on - is whether it's smart for me to defoliate (or partial defoliate) when doing the roots, as the die-back on my last root-pruning of a BC was farrrr worse than-expected!

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I would normally wait with the repotting and root work until late winter early spring. But since you are in Tampa area, you probably can get away with doing a complete defoliation and repotting and root work. You have a long enough growing season that it should work.

 

[JoeH]

I didn't comment because I don't have any experience with this species. Also, it is hard to know what exactly you are asking for because there are a lot of run-on sentences without any specific questions tied to them; more like a flow-of-consciousness piece. Perhaps just post one or two bullet point questions?

thank you, exactly what I was thinking. I go crazy reading long meandering posts trying to figure out the point of them. I usually just give up

 

[SU2]

thank you, exactly what I was thinking. I go crazy reading long meandering posts trying to figure out the point of them. I usually just give up

I'd had trouble w/ pointed-Q's in this instance because I'm not sure what I should be doing, I know a good deal of what not to do & figured to explain as best I could apologies for that I wish I could edit but forget there's a 20min rule here :/

This should be better, "How should I best-approach this BC? It's rootplate is so overgrown that it's a 2-fold problem, #1 it'll already be a shock to the tree to 'fix' it in 1 session, and that will get worse with time, and #2 the top is so large&thirsty that I can't keep-up with watering it......I want to start 'reigning in' this monster, while doing as-minimal-as-possible an intervention to the canopy", as I want to keep all that good vascular-tissue/branching.....that top leader-primary is so girthy which is great for me since its collar is closing the chop-wound quickly, what I want is to be able to get-back-to my current growth-rate after resolving its root-issue (since the longer I wait on that, the harder it'll be on the tree....already worried it's "begging for a 2-session/split-up root pruning" as it currently stands...) My only goal is to get it back to this growth rate after getting the roots 'right' which, for me / IMO, is:
- in a colander/breather-bag type of container, and
- roots nicely radiating from the center, outwards....have lost far too-much time trying to correct roots that set in awkward directions!

Wish it were as simple a situation/roadblock as "Do I cut here, or there?" but it's not, this guy is the most-excessive canopy > roots situation I've had to deal with, and I already know BC's won't tolerate super-aggressive rootprunings, so want to do as much as I can w/o killing it ;D

 

[SU2]

I would normally wait with the repotting and root work until late winter early spring. But since you are in Tampa area, you probably can get away with doing a complete defoliation and repotting and root work. You have a long enough growing season that it should work.

Thanks a million, honestly just the weight I put on your posts/advice is enough that reading ^ that negated my desire to post in the Tropicals section Re whether it's worthwhile to do some aggressive hard-prunes this time of year (my gut says it's OK....am going with it, in that case ;D )

SOooooo......complete defoliation is done instead-of pruning, achieving a similar function IE less transpiration-demand on the main stem/trunk, correct? I really wish I could un-do SO many old prunings, and done defoliations instead....regrowth of foliage (on broadleaf deciduous in FL) takes a fraction of the time that regrowing vascular tissue does!! Any & all elaboration you could give would be majorly appreciated, from specific pointers to meta 'thoughts'/feelings on the overall, am mostly stuck-up on specifics ie:
- defoliate the entire thing, or just partial? If/when doing partials, how(&why) would I choose to defoliate one area over another? My only 'guiding principle' here is "leave growing-tips intact whenever possible" (as my goal, right now, is girthy growth not ramificaion)
- root-pruning: How aggressive should I be? Or, how aggressive can I be? Is this something wherein, if expecting ideal conditions for "post-op", you'd do the full root-job in this 1 session? Or maybe just do a 50/50, leaving yourself a second, comparably-invasive rootpruning to be done in ~Feb? (you say "late winter/early spring", I've had too many late-winter fails that I only do early-spring now but it works a charm on most of my species )

Thanks again, any&all answers/tips/etc are going to be useful, especially whether or not I should be aiming for a full root-job or not (I'd define that as 100% 'untangling' of the roots / full radial-angling of all roots, this would necessitate plenty of root-removal in and of itself...then I'd be raking-out the roots and trimming their ends, removing maybe 1/3rd length since I know BC's can't take the same hits some of my other species can.....lastly I'd be putting it in indirect light for its first week or so 'post-op', have made a big batch of styrofoam-based substrate for this project so that I can have a medium where, when partially dry, I'll be able to move it Gonna be ugly as sin but 'perfect husbandry' so far as I understand it!!

 

[JoeH]

Try to get your posts down to a sentence or two. I kinda roll my eyes when I see something that is paragraph after paragraph. I tried to follow it and got lost as to which tree you were asking about and what you were asking. Adding in the red maple added to the confusion, I thought this was Bald Cypress thread. I'd have let those both go for another year at least. Let the roots thicken up some more before the hack job.

 

[SU2]

Try to get your posts down to a sentence or two. I kinda roll my eyes when I see something that is paragraph after paragraph. I tried to follow it and got lost as to which tree you were asking about and what you were asking. Adding in the red maple added to the confusion, I thought this was Bald Cypress thread. I'd have let those both go for another year at least. Let the roots thicken up some more before the hack job.

Yes I'm sorry for the confusion the Maple was similar but, while interested more in BC's it's really more of a "when&how to intervene if you messed-up by not using root-maker containerization"

So you'd actually let it go, despite a known root-problem? Could I ask why? So far as I understand it, it's a purely linear situation of "The longer you wait, the more-stressful it will be to the tree" - provided you agree with that, I'm curious why you'd wait another year ("at least"/longer-than a year)

My goal is girthy branches, building taper & closing chop-wounds so unfettered growth is my ideal and thought rootwork would be best done sooner -- with how poorly the prior BC responded to drastic root-pruning I'll admit I'm hesitant at any "large-scale buildups" beyond its already-bound state (also, the growth-rate in such an imperfect scenario is of course lower...curious how you'd approach it in 1yr / where you're coming from with that!)

 

[SU2]

I wish I could remember why I put so much weight to this guy's name but am sure googling would let anyone know it's not 'just some poster', think his name's John, anyway thankfully while googling some more I found the perfect answer to my query:

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Re: Bald cypress (Taxodium Distichum) question.

jgeanangel on Sun May 12, 2013 12:23 pm

I suspect all of the FLA folks will tell you not to repot at this point in the season. Here in SC, I regularly repot my BC in June and July...I defoliate the entire tree, prune, wire and then repot with a 100% success over the last 10 years. I do not put them back into full sun until the new buds break and then I ease it back into full sun over a week or so. Your mileage may very but Good Luck!!!
John

jgeanangelMember

So.....GG do this ^ to my largest BC (and my medium-but-awesome, 1st-ever BC ;D ) right now and see where it goes, will be relying heavily upon styrofoam in the substrate to, I hope, end with a movable BC (this thing is like 8' tall in its container right now, not really a "move in&out of full-sun" tree lol, but know that #1 it can't/shouldn't be in full-sun right after this intervention, and #2 as-soon-as-it's-capable I'll be aiming to have it back in full-sun/full-growth mode so will see whether I can get the container "transportable" or whether I'm building a temporary shade-frame for him ;D )

Will return with pictures, figure that it's definitely easier for people to see pics of what's been done and critique it, than to see what could be and hypothesize!

 

[JoeH]

I don’t have problems letting them alone for2-3 years like you apparently do. One that is approaching its third year of non root work is growing and producing cones.

 

[SU2]

I know I can get on your nerves, but from Oak seedlings to many other things, I have taken-on a great deal of knowledge from you, I'd reallllly love to understand one-another here but I cannot wrap my head around your this & am hoping you'll help me here:

I don’t have problems letting them alone for2-3 years like you apparently do. One that is approaching its third year of non root work is growing and producing cones.

Reading this I think "There's no possible way to have a BC in a regular container[not a grow-bag/pond-basket] for 3yrs without rootwork *and* expect anything approaching 'full'/optimized growth-rates", perhaps that right there is the divergence IE that I'm trying for more than "growing it" but am actually intending to "grow a canopy / close the chop-wound / etc as-quickly-as-possible"
In 1 year of good growth, I'll have a BC's rootplate filling-up a mortar tub to the point that it is most-certainly slowing growth, so naturally each successive year's growth will be slower/weaker than the year before....nevermind that it's easier on the tree to do 3 gentler root-prunes than to do 1 massive one.
Are you submerging your BC's containers? Using pond-baskets/grow-bags? How about your growth-rates, are you still able to grow a >1" new branch on something that's got a 2yrs-in-same-box rootplate? Lastly, how large are your containers? (Will admit that, it seems, more often than not people say they're "growing-out" some specimen but they've got it in a container that's hardly 2-3x the size of a show/bonsai pot, IMO this is silly & pointless as growing-out canopies - Development - is a very different horticultural endeavor than refinement, anything that slows growth should be addressed IMO and that includes roots, so whether it's rootwork because you'd used a solid-walled container, or simply up-potting something because its roots can't grow as freely as they'd like, it's gotta be dealt with if "optimization" & speed-of-growth are the prime considerations!)

Thanks for any insight, am guessing you're simply not doing the same 'type' of growing I do (how many years do you expect for closing a 3.5" chop-wound, for instance?), there's no 'right-or-wrong' here as some of my methods are more time-consuming and/or impractical for whatever reasons IE the size of the 'grow box' I made for this thread's BC is enormous, had to just set it up as the 'centerpiece' of my backyard as cornering it / benching it wasn't gonna happen, cannot wait for it to leaf-up again so it's not a big, mostly-brown sculpture in the center of my yard!!

 

[JoeH]

sigh... in ceramic pots with no drainage submerged below the soil line 1-3 inches and I don't repot every year. I see no need for it. Someone here mentioned that it does help promote knees so I am going to find out. And yes they grow just fine with all sorts of stuff I have to remove or retrain monthly. Chop wounds start to roll over the same year, if I dremel them down it helps it to not look like a chop. One is going to end up a split trunk possibly I see something in it. From a giveaway sapling at a trade show to Coke bottle size in I think 6 years I've had it.