Gritted my teeth and root-pruned harder than I've ever done (outside of collecting wild, of course!), wasted a lot of time getting the plastic off leaving the roots intact (only broke 1!) but ended up cutting-back even harder than if I'd sawzalled at the oil-pan from the start! Hope it makes it, based on the vigor I've seen in my BC's I expect it'll be fine
After removing oil-pan, upon realizing "yeah I can't have thick, lignified, downward roots
starting inches below the substrate"!!
Aaaand after some thorough pruning, I know the roots still circle here but, upon potting-up, I used rocks to forcibly move curved roots to a more radial position, will no doubt need to do more major root-work next repot but think it's good for now!!
[actually that must've been taken right before finishing as I can see 1 root that was pruned-back further, it was one of the hardest to bend into place!]
I'd say it's healthy enough to take any root pruning you need to do. Cut all the big, long roots you need to in order to fit into the container you choose. Cut what you need to get rid of the plastic. Cut all the down-growing roots. Prune the bigger roots so the ends are an inch or more from the sides of the pot. THIS is the time to get as aggressive as possible. You don't want to have to do severe big root pruning 2 or 3 years down the road.
THIS is exactly my thinking, am very glad I posted this because there's definitely the school of thought of "1 insult at a time", or even just that such a drastic cut-back should be staged over multiple sessions... I don't think "1 insult at a time" logic holds because the other insult was simply pruning all branches
except the leader which was left wholly un-touched, and they're so apically-dominant that that big ole top is a perfect area for it to push crazy growth in!! And re multiple sessions/seasons, it was already a nightmare at this point trying to un-tangle those thick, lignified roots that'd grown with and around each other, if I'd just done half the container then the un-done half would be a nightmare the next time (hell there'd likely be roots fusing together at that point)
Can you elaborate a lil on what you meant by "Prune the bigger roots so the ends are an inch or more from the sides of the pot"? I re-potted it in a larger container (barely), but this one is basically a grow-bag type container so circling roots shouldn't be a problem....I hope (and expect) this survives what I just did as the roots will have been effectively 'fixed' at this point, after setting it in the new container I jammed rocks into the substrate to force the (heavily-cut-back) circling roots to radial orientations so I can lose the circled-roots-were-here look!!!
I'd just saw off the root mass below the plastic barrier. The tree can handle it. I would also work to shorten and eliminate that mess of roots above the barrier. Sort those roots out. Remove unnecessary or redundant roots back to the trunk. You want some order and visual "breathing room" for the roots at the trunk. The way things look now is a horse collar of coarse roots that just around and around...
Thank you
I'd read your reply while working (too dirty to reply then lol) but was perfect timing as I hit a point where I'd (impressively, if I say so myself!) removed all the plastic, and immediately realized how bad the problem of doubled-pots was, I had like 8 big, thick roots feeding the entire bottom and not a single one split from thick & downward into branching/radial-roots/fine roots until well under the height of the bottom of the oil-pan, so there was simply no way to save *any* of them, I feel stupid having wasted my time now but for some reason I thought that by removing the plastic I would've been able to salvage *some* extra roots compared to simply having sawzalled right-along the bottom of that tray (would've saved myself like 2hrs....)
Re removing unnecessary or redundant roots to the trunk, I'm both unsure which would qualify for that right now *and* want to see this bounce-back strong so not planning to remove any thick roots back to the trunk (were there a lot you'd say should be removed? I'll have pics in a minute but I reallllly maimed that thing, removing redundant primary-roots anywhere closer than necessary for their new radial orientations seems riskier than I
have to be since, unlike the circling roots, it will be easy enough to fully remove the redundant roots (entirely) at mid-season or next spring! I almost wonder if this is the type of thing I should approach in a 2-3 step way, like aim to do 1/3 or 1/2 of the redundant-radial-removals at each of the next 2 or 3 re-pots to finish-off the problem entirely w/o ever having to shock it too much as I do intend to keep repeating this basic procedure IE grow-out a huge canopy & root-mass through growing-season and then cut it all back (except the leader) for at least 18mo!!!
You just learned why the “double colander” method is a bad idea!
Just cut ALL the roots off that went down through the bottom of the oil pan. You don’t want downward growing roots!
Then, those circling roots. Cut those bad boys off, too! All you want are radial roots, growing out.
Seriously!!! Roots chopped, thankfully there were fine roots in the pan still, I have it in a grow-bag type of container now to grow-out for this season....I planted (2) of this year's BC's in-ground upon getting them, would've done more if I'd had a chance to do more swamping (decided I'd start planting in-ground when I ran out of space & materials for proper boxing), obviously it
could be a bad move if I let it get out of control but, seeing this type of root-growth-rate, I expect it'll be mid-summer, not next spring, that I do the initial "get it out of the ground and into a box" process! This speaks to something I've been thinking more & more about as a general-premise of "proper" quick-development of bonsai-stock: each season/growing-session should basically be seen (at least in FL / tropic grow conditions) as a chance to grow-out as large-as-possible foliage-mass *&* root-mass, then prune both at the beginning of every growing season thereafter....this would really drive root ramification (annual or even 2x/year root-prunes) as well as letting the canopy grow unrestricted all growing-season, the 'trick' would just be finding the right sized container so you could count on it filling, but not encircling inside, the container between re-pots! I expect to do a minor pruning of the in-ground BC's roots when I lift them mid-season to put them in containers, and am in the process of setting up at least 1 raised-bed "grow area" where I've got a raised bed that's got "an access panel" along the entire bottom to allow you to reach a pruning-saw underneath and sever all escaped-roots, keeping them in the box - I figure if I do that, and simultaneously cut along the perimeter (well, ~1/2" inside of it) and back-fill that with substrate, it'd effectively be a full outer-root-prune done w/o having to disturb the rest of the root-mass at all! Have the wood & the plans but no pics yet, should be built this week (have some large bougies that just aren't getting the primary-girth I want in their boxes!)
