Does anyone have any tips to getting this mess of roots untangled
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I got a couple of Banksia's the other day and this is what I found in the pots. I have never faced this kind of mess before and without cutting my way through and losing more of the root ball than I have to I thought there might be some tricks of the trade. The plants will go into grow boxes for the next two years to get some life back into them.
Thanks Andrew
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use a knife to cut a layer from the bottom (up to 1/3 of the height of the rootball) and hose away the soil. Find and cut the tap root leaving fine spreading feeder roots.
Cheers
Always we hope someone else has the answer. Bonsai is an art of shrinking.
Judging by the size of the trunk in one photo you haven't bought trees of great character so losing them won't be a tragedy. I would cut the bottom half of the rootball away then try to scarify the sides of the rootball to loosen the packed edges and soak overnight in water laced with 'Wetta-Soil' or Saturaid. Next day I would try blasting the roots with the 'jet' stream from a trigger hose to see if more could be loosened. You can remove pie shaped wedges around the rootball and fill that with fresh soil, the theory being that new roots will infiltrate the fresh soil and next year you cut wedges in the remaining compact soil. I've tried that twice and lost both trees [and one was really nice and a shame to lose]. Depending on how that lot turned out I would reduce the soil ball further by taking another slice off the bottom, plant the tree and put it in a water tray. And hope.
I find it really hard when the soil is so compacted and you can only try to loosen it in whatever way possible and hope for the best. You could also cut across the soil ball and also slice down the sides. Good luck.
I would soak it in water and tease the roots till they come apart with a little rake and a scribe.
i have a melalluca that come from the pot in the same condition ive cut it back 3/4 and put it in the ground.
I bought three nursery trees like that a month ago - a Japanese box, a dwarf tropical rhododendron and a NZ Christmas tree. They were in the $2 orphan corner and were so root bound no water would enter the pot.
Anyway, I got vicious and cut almost 2/3 of the root balls off with a pruning saw and then sawed some of the sides of them (I said I was vicious). It was just impossible to do anything else with the root ball.
I then put them in large nursery pots with bonsai mix, gave them some water and a dose of Seasol and put them in the shade for a couple of weeks. I finally moved them back in the sun a couple of days ago and all seem to be growing. The rhodo actually had a tiny flower open today.
Now I have no experience but decided there wasn't much choice and with the cost of them it wasn't much risk. Anyway it seems to have worked out ok so maybe, just maybe I did the right thing, or was just lucky.
Last edited by Ron on March 12th, 2010, 10:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
thats not so bad, check this fig out and what i did
rootmass nightmare.jpg
rootmass nightmare side 2.jpg
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i know its a fig, but not one that buds back easily, it is now under going grafting to get a new leader, i beleive it is taking ok but it was an absolute mess, had to cut bout 90% or more off. you should be able to do that with banksia. i did the same to a banksia a bit ago aswell. it is now filling up the pot again and growing well
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SHOHIN YAKUZA!!! taking the top half of trees of since 2005!
and growing trees for the future generations! 50+ year plans
[quote="Jamie"]thats not so bad, check this fig out and what i did
Thats some extensive root work , I guess I have been a little held back about doing that much cutting on the roots but like I said I have never had a plant that is root bound.
Not the worst example of root binding Ive seen, mind you most of my plants come from the discount dept, so I see a lot of it. I would take off the bottom 1/3 to 1/4, tease out as many roots as I could from the mass. Whether I would go harder depends on the health of the plant, if it is suffering I might have to let it recover and deal with them again in a second round of work. But the woody parts of roots do not really contribute to collection of water and nutrients, they are simply plumbing. The important parts are the fine feeder roots, dont destroy too many of those. If going into the ground, make sure the hole is big, and filled with yummy stuff, mixed with the local soil, so there is plenty of loosish soil around the roots for them to grow into.
Better a $1 plant in a $10 hole than vice versa.
If you are not killing plants, then you are not extending yourself as a gardener..
Wish I took some photos of the bottlebrushes I just bought, rootbound in three layers. One of the roots was about 5 foot long, tree was only about 2 foot tall.
Now it's about 8 inches tall with 6 inch root ball
I got a couple of Banksia's the other day and this is what I found in the pots. I have never faced this kind of mess before and without cutting my way through and losing more of the root ball than I have to I thought there might be some tricks of the trade. The plants will go into grow boxes for the next two years to get some life back into them.
taking the top half of trees of since 2005! 
, I guess I have been a little held back about doing that much cutting on the roots but like I said I have never had a plant that is root bound.
