How to loosen roots without digging up tree?

5 years ago

last modified: 5 years ago

Hi, when I was a newbie I was not aware that tree's could be root bound and I planted some as is. Now my Picea Omorika Pendula Bruns is too large to be dug up. It was a B & B that was left in a container too long. The tree puts on healthy new growth each year. After a heavy wet snowstorm last month the tree is slightly tilted back. I'm worried that it will eventually fall over. What would be better without removing the tree. Slicing through the outer root ball with a shovel/spade or digging away the soil all around it and loosening the root ball with a sharp instrument? This would be done in the spring.

Thanks

Featured Answer

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)

5 years ago

"B&B gets put in pots all the time"

Getting put in pots is much different from being grown in pots!! Neither growing/harvesting method is ideal but field grown B&B stock will generally always have fewer circling/girdling root issues than container grown stock.

If you have a B&B tree that has been held in a container so long that it has since developed root issues (circling, girdling), then that would be something that should be almost painfully obvious in the nursery setting, as the tree would look like cr*p!

Comments (10)

wayne
5 years ago
Well placed dynamite, LOL
Jean
5 years ago
Nothing will decrease the damage at this point. Even if you could dig it up, you would find a tight knot of roots that never extended outward.

Consider it a lesson learned.
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User
5 years ago
Slightly tilted back?

How big of a tree is it?
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
"B&B left in a container too long"

Excuse me if that statement doesn't compute :-) Balled and burlapped trees are generally not in containers....that's why they are B&B. B&B stock is field grown so very little chance of any root congestion or girdling, unless it has occurred naturally all on its own. The only time B&B stock is sold in containers here is as a convenience at the retail nursery.......to hold tree upright for sale presentation and to keep the rootball in its wrapping moist by surrounding it with mulch or potting medium. Kinda like heeling them into a sawdust bed only instead of a bed it is in large individual nursery pots. It is most often just a single season situation so never a concern, since a B&B tree is usually short on a root system to begin with.

What am I missing?
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
join the 'weirder the better club' .... and just let it do its thing ... not everything needs to be fixed ...

i have often seen BB in pots ... i presumed.. fwtw .... that the plant sat around for a season ... and the burlap started falling apart.. so it was placed in a pot ..

ken
Sara Malone Zone 9b
5 years ago
B&B gets put in pots all the time. And since the B&B plant is almost always buried too deep to begin with, you get a real mess when whoever put it in the pot decided to bury the burlap completely. It's always a dead giveaway when you go to pick up a pot and it's so heavy you can't.
hairmetal4ever
5 years ago
Sometimes its the opposite. A container grown liner already rootbound is planted in the field, later to be harvested as B&B, but the bad, circled roots are still inside the rootball.
Embothrium
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Yep to the last post - the assumption that because it was finished in a field it follows that there was never a period when the specimen was left in a pot too long and deformed thereby is completely false. All the more so with grafted combinations, which in my experience in the market here are pretty much guaranteed to include a badly root-bound root-stock portion. Regardless of the production history otherwise.

The only woody material I see offered here that routinely has desirable root structure is that which is presented to retail consumers in a bare-rooted condition. These have no soil ball, wrappings and/or container to prevent the entire remaining (after digging and pruning) root system to be inspected before purchase.

Regarding the individual tree asked about here Serbian spruce can be prone to problems on sites fully exposed to strong winds. With those of some size I have seen here rather often not having a rod straight main stem. Maybe these examples got a curve from being planted with deformed roots - but were able to continue on despite the initial difficulties with proper anchorage.

And of course 'Pendula Bruns' tends to wander anyway:

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pendula%20bruns&cbir=sbi&imageBin=&qs=n&form=QBIR&sp=-1&pq=pendula%20bruns&sc=8-13&sk=&cvid=2C3F90717A1848EDAB1C0661D13AF0F4
gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
5 years ago
My experience has been quite different. Having dug my fair share of B&B stock over the years, I can't recall any that have had issues with any sort of root congestion, started as a container liner or not. Lack of an adequate root system is far more likely to be the case.

I also do not find container grown material to be that bad overall. Perhaps the nurseries I frequent just deal with better or more attentive growers.

YMMV

How to loosen roots without digging up tree?

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)

Comments (10)

wayne

Jean

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