AusBonsai

I barely managed to wait until my Trident shed its leaves before digging around the rock to see how the roots were establishing. I had used Vet Tape to get a close and snug placement of roots over and against the rock and now the fun begins. The tape has deteriorated but after 1 year, not nearly enough. Roots have grown over it and trying to remove the tape was not easy. In the end I got about half off and then decided to plant the tree and rock in the garden to thicken everything faster and let another year deteriorate the tape even further. In future I think I will do root over rock with raffia... that will definitely disintegrate in a year. Another option is simply rubber bands. They would never stand up to the soil conditions and would fall apart as the tree roots expanded and put pressure on them. Nothing for a root to grow into so I think I will try that even before raffia. Keeping in mind I don't work with big trees.

The only problem with rubber bands is expanding them enough to get them over the rock and roots but the struggle at the beginning has to be better than the fight at the end.

Rubber bands sounds like a good idea. I reckon those red ones will deteriorate faster than the regular yellow ones. At least they do in the sun.

I use a hessian wrap I get from Bunnings. It rots away in quick time. Similar to Raffia but a bit easier to use.

I suppose you could go from purchasing hessian at Bunnings to tearing an old linen tea towel into strips and winding with that. Deterioration would be one season. Thanks.

Thats a great idea. I have a bunch of old tea towels and old cloth nappies I can tear up and use.

Yes MelaQuin, hessian, cotton, linen - any natural fibre in a lighter weight fabric strip should work.

I do use elastic bands on smaller trees (they are the only ones I put "over rocks" as I'm going to have to lift the whole thing for years to come!). I use the wide, red ones so I don't cut into the roots and I use pieces of charcoal (we have a combustion heater so I have a supply) between the elastic and the roots where I want to wedge roots into a hollow or the contour of the rock causes the band to place insufficient tension on the roots. The system has worked well for my little Trident.

Jan

i have used graft tape with pretty good success, it can be a little awkward to start but it has worked for me! also plain old cooking string, or parcel twine, it disintergrates after a while, i do find that i have a lot of any of the materials on the rock when using that sort of stuff though just to make sure it holds on and allows the roots to grow in, packing things ontop of the roots can help get them into crevices like jan said too

I must agree with using cheap soft twine/jute ... must be natural so it will break down.

I have bought cheap no-frills plastic wrap and cut the roll into 2" strips. Wrap this around sufficiently ... after the first couple of roll ons it starts to stick to itself. Disintegrates fairly quickly, secret is
not to enclose all the roots onto the rock but allow for tree to receive water with drainage in spite of plastic wrap.

Cheap gladwrap with sand poured down around the roots. Works a treat on rough stone and figs.