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How do I trim roots of Bougainvilla to put in smaller pot?

18 years ago

I purchased a one gallon Purple Bougainvilla at a local nursery in San Diego yesterday. The trunk, branches, folliage are about 12"H x 15"W. The roots are very shallow, about 4 to 4.5 inches deep. I'd like to repot it in a round or square bonsai pot with a depth of about 3 to 3.5 inches. I've read several posts stating not to disturb the roots and several others claiming no problem with disturbing them. My question is: How do I safely trim the roots to fit in the desired pot? Is is safe to cut the roots at all? I'm not sure, but it doesn't seem to have a strong tap root. I was considering just spreading the root ball out to allow it to fit in the desired pot as opposed to cutting the roots back.

Any suggestions, advice or thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.

I live in Zone 10 (according to the zip code zone feature on this site) and am keeping the Bougainvilla in a sunny area of my balcony.

I'm new to Bonsai and very much a novice but have acquired about a dozen plants over the past 2 years that I'm working on.

Thanks for any help.

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Comments (6)

justteen_bonzy
18 years ago
If it's root bound, trim one third of the roots off CAREFULLY! If it isn't root bound, carefully spread the roots out, place it in its new pot, and cover it with new, rich soil. Be carefull and try not to trim the taproot if possible if it isn't strong. The taproot IS the most important part of the root system.
GOOD LUCK!
jason
lucy
18 years ago
If there is a good mass of feeder roots up towards the trunk (rather than being only/mostly coming off the older long roots, or the tap root) then don't be afraid to cut the tap root, it's done all the time in bonsai and has to be done if you are to keep your tree in a bonsai pot.
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I'm only answering because no one else has yet; I'm no expert on planting in-ground. All mine overwinter indoors in pots, in sunny areas and lightly watered. It won't hurt, especially if they're still dormant, to prune off any roots that are small and look dead or unhealthy. They'll grow those small feeder roots right back and most will benefit from the root-pruning. I would think if they were stored bare-rooted you could probably soak them for a few hours in rainwater (or at least tap water that's been sitting for several hours to gas off some of the chlorine and come up to room temperature) with a few drops of SuperThrive in it, and then plant them right away into amended garden soil in your garden, then drench with your leftover soaking water. (If you don't already have it, SuperThrive is a wonderful supplement for all your plants, and especially transplants.) Your other option is to "plunge": soak, then plant in a good-quality perlite-rich potting soil in a plastic pot and bury the pot up to the rim in it's garden spot. That way you have better control over the quality of the soil, keep some pests away from the root ball, keep the plant's roots at a stable ground temperature (clearly your plants were happy last year in the ground), and still be able to easily pull it up when you're ready to store. Those are just my best ideas based on how we transplant bare-rooted plants that have been shipped to us. Good luck! Jen
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Nitsua, LOL! Yes, each time I saw this thread title that's what I thought, like one of those carnival games of counting how many gumballs were in the jar to win a prize. I didn't think to calculate either until Deeby asked for a formula to convert her pot size to gallons which is sort of the same thing. Deeby For a 20" top diameter pot, if you don't want to measure the height, bottom diameter and top diameter and get the exact gallons in the convenient online calculator, an estimate is that you have a sort of #20 or #25 pot, the height coming way up your thigh is quite tall. Most 20 inch pots are around 20 gallons, but the formula gives around 27 gallons since I guessed your "half way thigh high" is about 25 inches tall, but that was hard to work with since you could be wearing shoes, measuring the outer lip, or it could be sitting on a saucer, etc. Because pots have different slants from top to bottom, it isn't enough just to measure the top diameter. Yours sounds closest to the #25 tall here which is shorter but a little wider so around 25 gallons sounds reasonable. You can compare it to commercial pot sizes at nursery pots also to get a really good idea of the gallons: Nursery Pot Commercial Sizes The other way to do it is to see if the company/product number is on the bottom of the pot and see if their website has it listed in gallons too. Most do. Volume is what is important to roots, however you wish to measure it, since containers come in all shapes, as long as they are reasonable. PC
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TimZ8
18 years ago
Has anyone concidered what time of year it is? Marciotti, don't do any cutting now, wait until late spring in your area. Your tree will respond much better.
bonsaikc
18 years ago
Tim is exactly right! The bougainvillea is a tropical tree and should be repotted in late spring to early summer. Since almost any size (perhaps up to a foot or larger in diameter) cutting will root readily with proper care, good repotting technique should enable you to cut the roots strongly and have the tree not miss a beat.

Chris
markciotti
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks to all of you who have offered care information. I still haven't mustered the nerve to pull it out of the pot to examine the roots yet, but have purchased a suitable bonsai pot to place it in.
Because there is so little soil in it's plastic gallon nursery pot, I may place it in another pot with better soil until spring, then trim/spread the roots and place it in the bonsai pot I purchased for it.
Jason, we have the same birthday. December 5th.
Christopher, I found the links on your home page quite informative.
I'll post more after I've re-potted and see how it's doing during our mild San Diego winter.
Thanks again to all of you for your suggestions and help.
lucy
18 years ago
How can you have bought a 'suitable' pot for it, when you don't know the state of the roots? In other words, whether they now fill, half fill or hardly fill the pot, whether there's a lot of feeder roots nearer the trunk (allowing you to do a bigger chop of the rest of the rootball) or none at all, in which case you'd need to keep a lot more of the ball til new ones grow in, etc.

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