I'd chop 'em all off just above the crown and keep the soil damp, but not wet. WHILE you repot, it's important to keep the roots constantly wet. That means you need to be dipping them in a tub of water at least every minute, or removing the old soil with water pressure. The all-important fine roots dry out and die quickly unless you stay on top of keeping them wet. AFTER the repot, it's important that you keep the soil moist where it's occupied by the roots, That might mean watering every day until the roots start to colonize the deeper part of the pot. Other than that, you'll need to get a feel for how many fine roots you must leave to support the water needs of the top of the plant. I regularly remove up to 90% of a plant's roots during a repot and I almost never ever lose a plant unless it blows out or an animal helps it out of the pot. Al

Mike, Hey sounds like you have a great handle on both the 5-1-1 and gritty mixes! It took me a long time to find all the ingredients and figure out the fertilizer side of things, but once you do some reading of this thread and the previous eight threads it does make sense. Al was most generous with his time, both on and off-list, and answered many of my "newbie" questions. I'm sure your plants should respond much better using these soil mixes next season. My trees are showing huge root growth this season in the gritty mix. Granted, hunting down the ingredients, sifting fines, and mixing the soil it is a bit more work than just buying a bag of MG potting soil, but I have no doubt that in general plants grow better in the 5-1-1 and grit mixes with proper fertilization, watering, drainage and air movemnet through the root zone. The peat in the MG soil acts like a sponge and retains far too much water for far too long, preventing air from getting to the roots and keeping the roots soggy. I agree that typically the big box stores are not very helpful when it comes to finding the right ingredients for the soil mixes. Granted, a few list members have found the right size of pine bark, turface or even silica sand at a HD or Wal-Mart but typically in my area you have to go to local hardware stores, feed stores, etc. to find the ingredients. In my experience, if you go to HD or Lowe's and ask for turface no one has any idea what you are talking about. Sounds like you've already found some great sources for your materials! Good luck next season and be sure to keep us posted on how your plants do in the new mixes. Thanks Dave

Hi, Just curious, I have a question about sphagnum peat vs sphagnum moss. By mistake, I purchased sphagnum moss at the onset of making the 511 mix. I mixed one batch and used it for one of my 3 plants. When I realized that I was using the moss instead of the sphagnum peat, I threw it out and purchased the correct one and used it to make the mix for the other 2 plants I have. My question is this, is it possible that the presence of the sphagnum moss in this one container could somehow attract any pests? The reason I ask is that I saw about a couple of black, winged, fast-moving pests (maybe thrips or gnats?) around this plant today. Upon further inspection, I shuffled some of the top mix and saw a single, tiny larva(e) crawling in the medium and suspected that I have pests breeding in my container. And afterwards, as I shook the container, a fast crawling, winged pest climbed out of the mix, and up the side of the container. I sprayed this plant with some insecticdal soap and plan on repotting it using the sphagnum peat moss instead. So could this (sphagnum moss) be the reason for pest-sightings? I want to solve a potential big problem now, before the real bug season begins. By the way, I haven't watered this plant for like a week and it still seems to be moist inside. I had watered every 3 days prior to the last time.

Lou, I agree about the sharp sand but I'm not going to be a stickler about it...yet. I'm just having a hard time arguing with the OP's results, and he used river sand. I would offer it as an alternative and suggest the pros and cons, as you did, but with these results I am backing off on my former insistence on sharp sand. For example what if sharp sand packed down on top of the grass and slowed the regrowth of the bermuda? Round sand won't do that and could actually be the reason why this method works. Like I said in my first reply to this, I've seen bermuda killed by applying this much sand. Oh, and the OP did core aerate as part of his project. I think I agree with the importance of that. I may be changing several of my opinions based on this topic. For example 1. Rounded (river) sand may not be as bad as we have been thinking. 2. Core aeration may not always be a complete and utter waste of time, energy, and money. 3. Smothering bermuda with sand may not kill it if you prepare it right and provide proper follow on care. I don't know if the OP accidentally stumbled on a method that works or he read it somewhere or what. But hey, it really did work. In all the years of reading this forum, this is the first time I've seen real solution to this frequently asked question. I think the ideas need to be captured and saved as a FAQ. I'm willing to write it up and give the OP full credit. Unfortunately iVillage doesn't want pictures in their FAQs. Too bad because I would not have believed it if I had not seen the pix. So I have something else in mind besides a FAQ here.