Repotting Pines

[Bretts]

I have several Pines to re-pot this year. I have re-potted some before but it was probably little more than slip potting with some of the old soil removed.
It is stated to only bare root a part of the root ball at a time yet I have never seen any pictorial that fully shows how to go about this.
I have done one this season already JBP and as it was in a nursery pot that was fairly dense I was very unsure how to go about it. I ended up cutting a decent amount of the bottom and ended up removing all downward growing roots that I could get hold off. I then teased out about a 1/3 area of the surface roots and left the other 2/3 relatively undisturbed. It is a nice little pine I hope it survives.
Is there any experienced pine growers that can show us in detail how to go about this?

[Jow]

Best way to do really root bound pine stock is to bare root 1/2 the root ball (ie. the left side) one season and do the right hand side the next. It the tree is healthy it should be fine though.

[alpineart]

Hi Bretts ,sorry fella dont really have any pot bound trees .Although when i do pines i only take 1/3 of the outer off after carefully raking the root ball and selecting the roots to keep . Pines dont particularly like too much root disturbance hence i always err on the side of caution only with this topic .Cheers

[Bretts]

I am starting think that it works to call the downward growing roots as one side. ie if taking all downward growing roots leave all surface roots.
It seemed to work for this one anyway.
First cut the bottom off.

prepot.jpg

Then spread and remove all downward growing roots. I was not talking specifically about root bound trees alpine but more nursery pot to bonsai pot but I think I have answerd my own question count downward growing roots as 1/3. Although the pot was very full of roots it came away pretty good. I bought this tree of Mason at Bonsai by the Bay for $10 wich was perfect for me to muck around with. I was surprised to find the roots splayed out flat pretty easy with minimal downward roots that needed removing so cudos to you Mase

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The next one is a tree I got in a bulk deal about 10 months ago with a trident and fig. I had not seen the tree in a while before I made the deal and it wasn't in great health. It had been slip potted into a larger pot of crap soil it was drowning. I removed all the crap soil down to the root ball in the middle of summer and nursed it ever since. It has paid off and is starting to show good health again. Although some branches had died as well as every bud on the tree it has a great flush of new buds this year and no further branches have died back. Since it was going so well I almost did not touch the soil this year but for the same reason decided to go ahead
I practically bare rooted 1/3 of the root ball and replaced with an akadama mix.

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Oh and not sure if it helped but you may notice I bare rooted the most vigourous side.
Any advice certainly apreciated.