Leatherbacks Arakawa maple

[dacoontz]

Great video, some questions. I have a few really old nursery trees that have been stuck in their pots for a decade plus. When I go to repot they tend to have a similar state with their roots. I end up removing all the soil and sometimes don’t feel like there’s many young healthy roots left. Does it take much to keep them going? From where do they essentially “bud” new roots?

Lastly, I noticed that you didn’t vigorously pack soil into the root ball. Do you find that just some gentle chop sticking fills it in sufficiently? I’d imagine a good drenching helps with that too.

Any additional wisdom is appreciated. I have a few real gems that I believe will take just a little time but first need to get out of their nursery pots. That’s the step that brings me the most anxiety.

 

[Fonz]

Good work and editting.
That tree is going to be a lot happier this year.

Did you play the piano yourself?

 

[leatherback]

Great video, some questions. I have a few really old nursery trees that have been stuck in their pots for a decade plus. When I go to repot they tend to have a similar state with their roots. I end up removing all the soil and sometimes don’t feel like there’s many young healthy roots left. Does it take much to keep them going? From where do they essentially “bud” new roots?

Lastly, I noticed that you didn’t vigorously pack soil into the root ball. Do you find that just some gentle chop sticking fills it in sufficiently? I’d imagine a good drenching helps with that too.

Any additional wisdom is appreciated. I have a few real gems that I believe will take just a little time but first need to get out of their nursery pots. That’s the step that brings me the most anxiety.

I am not sure what you mean with packing the soil. The soil is all throughout the rootball.

In general I find most deciduous trees to be pretty good with strong cutbacks on the roots. However, what I did on this arakawa was more needs-based than preference. Timing is everything. I did this work as I saw the first buds starting to open up,a little earlier than regularly. Time will tell whether I messed up..

 

[leatherback]

Did you play the piano yourself?

Hahaha, nope

 

[dacoontz]

I am not sure what you mean with packing the soil. The soil is all throughout the rootball.

In general I find most deciduous trees to be pretty good with strong cutbacks on the roots. However, what I did on this arakawa was more needs-based than preference. Timing is everything. I did this work as I saw the first buds starting to open up,a little earlier than regularly. Time will tell whether I messed up..

I suppose what I mean is when you don’t have a well packed rootball as is found in old nursery root bound trees. Just lots of twisted coarse roots that end up with not much of a sheen. It seems that you cleaned out quite a bit of the soil on your maple from the periphery. I couldn’t tell how much soil remained afterwards. So simply speaking of your technique. Doesn’t seem that much packing of soil into deep pockets of air was needed with the chopstick.

 

[ConorDash]

Great video @leatherback . I always enjoy these types of videos, whether you've repotted 1 tree or 100s. Distinguishing between good and bad roots, takes some practice, I'm sure.
I have 1 or 2 beasts of trees to repot at the moment, both nursery material and never had work done. The sheer idea of one of the BIG pieces of material I have, has stopped me from working it for 1-2 years.. It'll be a good 3 hours I think, not including working the material above the soil.
Your video has helped motivate me though

 

[leatherback]

Great video @leatherback . I always enjoy these types of videos, whether you've repotted 1 tree or 100s. Distinguishing between good and bad roots, takes some practice, I'm sure.
I have 1 or 2 beasts of trees to repot at the moment, both nursery material and never had work done. The sheer idea of one of the BIG pieces of material I have, has stopped me from working it for 1-2 years.. It'll be a good 3 hours I think, not including working the material above the soil.
Your video has helped motivate me though

Such a shame it is a little dificult to get to you. Would have loved to pop by and work this with you!

 

[leatherback]

I suppose what I mean is when you don’t have a well packed rootball as is found in old nursery root bound trees. Just lots of twisted coarse roots that end up with not much of a sheen. It seems that you cleaned out quite a bit of the soil on your maple from the periphery. I couldn’t tell how much soil remained afterwards. So simply speaking of your technique. Doesn’t seem that much packing of soil into deep pockets of air was needed with the chopstick.

There was no substrate left in the rootball once I finished cleaning it out But there were very few roots left too. So backfilling was not too hard. I do however skip over part of the boring work here and there. NOw it is a matter of the tree picking up steam and re-rooting. I do expect some of the finer twigging to struggle this spring.

 

[ConorDash]

Such a shame it is a little dificult to get to you. Would have loved to pop by and work this with you!

Would have loved the help.

Took me about 2 hours of sawing away to half the root ball.
Finally got it off.. exhausting work.
Soil is so dense, cutting wood whilst the saw is constantly stuffed with soil is a nightmare.






Now it's just cutting slabs of root, soil and wood away to get it as small as I can now but any shallower is met with that huge chunk of wood to go through. Will see how much longer I go for! 3.5 hours in so far.
Sorry don't mean to highjack thread!

 

[leatherback]

Now it's just cutting slabs of root, soil and wood away to get it as small as I can now but any shallower is met with that huge chunk of wood to go through. Will see how much longer I go for! 3.5 hours in so far.

SLightly concerned with your doing this right now. Make sure your aftercare is right!

 

[ConorDash]

SLightly concerned with your doing this right now. Make sure your aftercare is right!

Lol thanks. I don't quite sign up to the same timings as some may say on the forum, I'm sure the tree will be fine, let's not dive in to that controversy now! Who has the time?!

It's roots were even better than I thought, tons of small roots everywhere. Tree was roughly cut afterwards to balance the root supply and leaf needs. Tomorrow I'll cut properly and style. All good will post updates on the thread. Moss was also placed on top as a form of aftercare, it goes in to a spot with least wind and less sun, the core of its rootball is still surrounded by original soil and accompanying bacteria. Will see how the big lump does!

 

[leatherback]

Soo.. for those who liked episode 1.. Episode 2 is a speechless one, just online:

 

[Mapleminx]

Finally had time to catch up to this one. The latest clean up vid, such an interesting tree.