This will probably apply to all elongating species but, I had a Doug Fir that I collected last year. It wasn’t very old but since I live in the middle of Europe and am originally from the Pacific coast, I had to have one. I stuffed it into the smallest container possible and let it grow freely with fertilizer, etc. It’s at the point now, where I need to do major branch pruning to push it forward, tall formal upright is the goal, however, it grew so vigorously that it also needs to be root trimmed quite a bit as the water is now having a hard time getting into the root ball and has actually lifted the tree up a bit. I am now in a pickle about what to do since one should only be doing one or the other per year. Any ideas gang?
Put off repot. Clean up the soil surface,Take a piece of alumium flashing and cut a long narrow piece then fashion it into a edge damn around theinner edge of the pot inserted in the soil.this will allow watering that will get you through the season. Do your pruning and fertilization.
Great idea Crust, thanks for that and I will do that. Leaving the roots intact will definitely give the rest of the tree a needed push for recovery after the trim. Have good one!
I agree with crust. Thomas, find the tertiary content video in the Mirai archive, I think it’s called “improving percolation”. Ryan does something in that video similar to what crust describes, builds the edge of the pot higher with tape to make a dam of sorts to encourage water to permeate the root ball. Also, with that much vigour in the roots it should recover from any pruning in no time! Then you could do rootwork the following spring if it looks healthy.
Thanks Mike for pointing me in the right direction. For sure with the roots fully intact I can do some hacking this year and still move forward, which I was debating in my head all winter. I am happy I asked here!
