In a recent issue of International Bonsai magazine, there was a very
instructive article about roots, especially nebari. It should be required reading for
anyone who sells bonsai. Cheap mallsai and garden center shrubs are one thing,
but I should not pay good money to an established well-known bonsai nursery
for a semifinished tree in a bonsai pot, or even a semi-starter plant, and find
a disaster when I go to repot it. I have found the ground level four inches
above the root ball, the roots all tangled up in a knot from the original
cutting pot, a nebari consisting of two or three large roots not even at the same
level, strangler roots, or other unspeakable horrors.
Yes, I realize that it is labor intensive for you to prune and straighten out
the roots of a young tree when you repot it. But looking back on the root
problems I have struggled with, I would rather pay a few dollars more for a tree
with decent roots. With a professional bonsai nursery, it shouldn't be What
You See is What You Get and Let the Buyer Beware. We amateurs should be able to
trust you to sell stock with the invisible part as good as the visible part,
or at least reasonably usable.
When you buy an appliance or other inanimate object, there is an implied
warranty that the item will do what it is being sold to do ("merchantability").
When you buy bonsai stock, there should be an implied warranty that the plant is
suitable for bonsai, including the root system.
This is also a warning to the beginning amateurs. When you buy a tree,
especially an expensive one, be sure to poke around the roots under the soil level
to see exactly what you are getting. Sometimes the problem is that the retailer
buys already potted trees from a wholesale nursery & resells them as is.
Repotting each tree in a shipment would make them too expensive. Buyers should
examine these trees very carefully.
Iris

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by Jarbas Godoy ++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++

Iris,

I second your plea. This is why I generally buy cheaper, prebonsai material
- even with a fair bit of experience I still lose a fair bit on that initial
repotting when I correct the worst of the problems. It is also why we
should buy from dealers like Brent who get the roots started in the right
direction even though he cannot really afford to do the complete job at the
prices we will pay.

Marty

-----Original Message-----
From: Internet Bonsai Club ] On Behalf Of

Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 7:03 PM
To:
Subject: [IBC] A Plea to Commercial Growers

In a recent issue of International Bonsai magazine, there was a very
instructive article about roots, especially nebari. It should be required
reading for
anyone who sells bonsai.

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by Jarbas Godoy ++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++

At 10:03 PM 1/6/04 -0500, wrote:
In a recent issue of International Bonsai magazine, there was a very
instructive article about roots, especially nebari. It should be required
reading for
anyone who sells bonsai. Cheap mallsai and garden center shrubs are one thing,
but I should not pay good money to an established well-known bonsai nursery
for a semifinished tree in a bonsai pot, or even a semi-starter plant, and
find
a disaster when I go to repot it. I have found the ground level four inches
above the root ball, the roots all tangled up in a knot from the original
cutting pot, a nebari consisting of two or three large roots not even at
the same
level, strangler roots, or other unspeakable horrors.
Yes, I realize that it is labor intensive for you to prune and straighten out
the roots of a young tree when you repot it. But looking back on the root
problems I have struggled with, I would rather pay a few dollars more for
a tree
with decent roots. With a professional bonsai nursery, it shouldn't be What
You See is What You Get and Let the Buyer Beware. We amateurs should be
able to
trust you to sell stock with the invisible part as good as the visible part,
or at least reasonably usable.
When you buy an appliance or other inanimate object, there is an implied
warranty that the item will do what it is being sold to do
("merchantability").
When you buy bonsai stock, there should be an implied warranty that the
plant is
suitable for bonsai, including the root system.
This is also a warning to the beginning amateurs. When you buy a tree,
especially an expensive one, be sure to poke around the roots under the
soil level
to see exactly what you are getting. Sometimes the problem is that the
retailer
buys already potted trees from a wholesale nursery & resells them as is.
Repotting each tree in a shipment would make them too expensive. Buyers should
examine these trees very carefully.
Iris

Iris

I agree with you, and as a grower, I agonize over this issue. It _is_
expensive to produce plants with a proper root system for bonsai.

I haven't read the article you mention, but I have developed my own set of
techniques from root pruning and repotting thousands of plants a year. More
on this later, but first I want to address the economics issue. First, let
me thank all of you who do appreciate the extra effort and expense that it
takes, and have shown this appreciation by buying quality plants from
reputable and qualified growers. Ultimately, this support is what will
change the system. No business is going to create a product for which there
is no demand or no expectation of a demand in the future. It's not going to
happen. This is one of the reasons I spend SO much time on the
horticultural aspects of bonsai education.

For those of you who complain about the quality of stock from Wal-Mart, all
I can say is bon appetit. Why are even considering buying from big box
stores if you aren't planning on starting over at almost every level of
development save the trunk caliper? To mallsai growers and bonsai growers
who just don't care, I say I hope you will get your just rewards, but in
fact, these are the only people making any money. To globalize the thought
a bit (and I apologize as I drag out the soapbox), this is not only
happening in bonsai, but rather it appears to be the new business mantra:
Make as much as fast as you can, and get out quick (or shift the assests to
a legally untouchable holding company). Customer related business
practices these days make me cringe. Everything business these days relates
to the bottom dollar, even ethics. There is a cold hard assessment of the
cost/benefit ratio of operating ethically, from producing killer SUV tires,
to calculating the return on forcing an insurance customer to sue for a
settlement, to insisting on a spouse's buyout of his dead wife's cellphone
contract. This is the new business world. Actually, it is recycled from the
1890's, but it seems new.

It's probably time to revisit the corporation laws and constitutional
interpretations bestowing the legal status of 'individual' upon
corporations, but don't look for it to happen in this political atmosphere.
In any case, there still are some good corporate citizens and many good
small proprietorships out there. When you find one of these, it is your
duty to support it if you can. Otherwise we are all doomed to end up as
economic fodder. But enough of that.

Here are some of the things that I try to do that don't cost a lot, but
make a big difference. Realizing that it is very difficult to change a bad
root situation long after its onset, I have instituted procedures to begin
correcting root problems at the seedling/cutting/grafting stage where it's
easy. Since I am a production nursery, albeit a tiny one, I have to able to
do this efficiently. Simple things like how you put soil in the pot when
planting or transplanting liners can make a big difference. if you stick
the rooted plant in the pot and then fill it with soil, the soil will push
the roots downward close to the trunk, like closing an umbrella. But, if
you fill the pot half full of soil and then gently plunge the plant in the
soil, the roots, especially the upper roots, flare outward and away from
the trunk, then you can fill the rest of the pot and mantain a nice radial
pattern. This costs almost nothing but it sets the stage for a lifetime. I
have also written a whole article on treating bareroot seedlings to get
high survival rates and good radial root patterns in the article at the
website on Pruning Bareroot Seedlings.

Grafting is another area where some minor attention to detail can lead to
vastly superior results. Grafts are not like seedlings and cuttings. These
are _expensive_ to produce. First you have to sacrifice an existing plant
(the understock), then you have to undergo a labor intensive operation to
create the graft. Then you have to sink capital into a facility for
aftercare. And in the end, the losses are usually higher than for other
forms of propagation. Take all of these problems and then add in the fact
that bonsai requires _special_ grafting procedures, then you see that
serious time/money is involved. But again, some things that are easy to do
can make a big difference. First, low grafting will actually give you a
nebari near the union (unobtainable in nearly all other commercial grafts
without the additional process of airlayering!). Starting before this
stage, preparation of the understock can make the grafting easier and begin
the process of nebari formation. Seedling plants (pines mostly) can be
potted high (roots above the rim) and the surface roots arranged radially,
circling roots removed, etc, and then the crown mounded with soil. When it
comes time to graft, the mounded soil is washed away revealing what will
ultimately become the nebari. Not only can you graft just above this point,
you also plan the front of the tree based on nebari before it is even
grafted!. Once the graft takes, a further refinement can occur when it is
removed from the small liner/grafting pot into a one gallon can.

These things are cheap and easy. At the one gallon stage and larger, things
get more difficult, a lot more difficult. Now, we are talking the use of
serious tools, labor and knowledge on plants that have a lot of
time/labor/money already invested in them. Doing all the easy stuff above
really helps a lot, but there are still going to be major problems to solve
on most plants once they move from liner to one gallon (shohin) stock.
There are two major problems: correction of surface roots and removal of
heavy bottom and lower roots. Despite my best efforts, production one
gallon plants will very often form overly large surface roots that have to
be removed, cut back, or split to improve the nebari. These are usually
serious roots upon which the tree may receive a critical amount of support.
I have come up with a strategy based upon a good working generalization:
Upon any typical repotting of a basically healthy plant, you can remove ONE
large surface root. After two or three repottings, this should cure even
the worst offenders.

Removing soil and exposing roots on one gallon and larger stock is a
daunting procedure. You all know how long this takes and how hard it can
be, even physically demanding. How can a typical commercial grower do this
kind of labor intensive work and still be able to sell a plant at a price
that the market will bear? I have solved this problem, hopefully, with two
tools: the axe and the hose. First I give the victim a good hosing off to
remove the upper layer of soil and the outside soil, if any. This is the
easy part, and it allows inspection of the roots, especially the nebari
area again. If the surface rooting is basically ok, I just proceed to comb
out the surface roots with a root hook and chop off the heavy lower portion
of the roots. It is difficult to generalize how much because it depends on
the species, the health of the plant, and the time of the year, but
basically, it is around 1/3 to 1/2 the root depth. This is only if
necessary. Sometimes there will only be a thick layer of roots only in the
bottom inch or so that needs to be whacked. If one of the large surface is
going to be removed, then this procedure has to be reconsidered. As much as
possible, the major root and all its little branched roots need to be
removed to see what's left to determine how much, if any, additional root
pruning is possible.

Now, to be perfect honest, do all the plants I sell (liner and one gallon)
have excellent surface rooting (nebari) without extensive root bound
conditions? No, emphatically no, but they are better than most. At least I
have made a start. Where economically feasible, I do the best I can do and
still make a modest living, but you will still have a lot of work to do.
For one thing, nebari, especially in beginning plants, is not a static
situation. A lot can go wrong from the time I repot until the time I sell a
plant. Secondly, I think very few of us really appreciate how hard it is to
form an _excellent_ nebari as opposed to even a _reasonable_ nebari. In the
worst cases, all you can do is cut off the entire root system and start
over via airlayering. I have plants like this, bonsai that I started
fifteen years ago, and never got around to nebari correction. Now they are
bonsai with exquisite trunks, branches, and ramification, but not even
showable because the nebari is hideous. So, this year, I will bite the
bullet, layer them off and start a five to ten year process of decent
nebari formation. Hey it's only another decade...



Brent in Northern California
Evergreen Gardenworks USDA Zone 8 Sunset Zone 14

http://www.EvergreenGardenworks.com

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by Jarbas Godoy ++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++

At 10:03 PM 1/6/04 -0500, wrote:
In a recent issue of International Bonsai magazine, there was a very
instructive article about roots, especially nebari. It should be required
reading for
anyone who sells bonsai. Cheap mallsai and garden center shrubs are one thing,
but I should not pay good money to an established well-known bonsai nursery
for a semifinished tree in a bonsai pot, or even a semi-starter plant, and
find
a disaster when I go to repot it. I have found the ground level four inches
above the root ball, the roots all tangled up in a knot from the original
cutting pot, a nebari consisting of two or three large roots not even at
the same
level, strangler roots, or other unspeakable horrors.
Yes, I realize that it is labor intensive for you to prune and straighten out
the roots of a young tree when you repot it. But looking back on the root
problems I have struggled with, I would rather pay a few dollars more for
a tree
with decent roots. With a professional bonsai nursery, it shouldn't be What
You See is What You Get and Let the Buyer Beware. We amateurs should be
able to
trust you to sell stock with the invisible part as good as the visible part,
or at least reasonably usable.
When you buy an appliance or other inanimate object, there is an implied
warranty that the item will do what it is being sold to do
("merchantability").
When you buy bonsai stock, there should be an implied warranty that the
plant is
suitable for bonsai, including the root system.
This is also a warning to the beginning amateurs. When you buy a tree,
especially an expensive one, be sure to poke around the roots under the
soil level
to see exactly what you are getting. Sometimes the problem is that the
retailer
buys already potted trees from a wholesale nursery & resells them as is.
Repotting each tree in a shipment would make them too expensive. Buyers should
examine these trees very carefully.
Iris

Iris

I agree with you, and as a grower, I agonize over this issue. It _is_
expensive to produce plants with a proper root system for bonsai.

I haven't read the article you mention, but I have developed my own set of
techniques from root pruning and repotting thousands of plants a year. More
on this later, but first I want to address the economics issue. First, let
me thank all of you who do appreciate the extra effort and expense that it
takes, and have shown this appreciation by buying quality plants from
reputable and qualified growers. Ultimately, this support is what will
change the system. No business is going to create a product for which there
is no demand or no expectation of a demand in the future. It's not going to
happen. This is one of the reasons I spend SO much time on the
horticultural aspects of bonsai education.

For those of you who complain about the quality of stock from Wal-Mart, all
I can say is bon appetit. Why are even considering buying from big box
stores if you aren't planning on starting over at almost every level of
development save the trunk caliper? To mallsai growers and bonsai growers
who just don't care, I say I hope you will get your just rewards, but in
fact, these are the only people making any money. To globalize the thought
a bit (and I apologize as I drag out the soapbox), this is not only
happening in bonsai, but rather it appears to be the new business mantra:
Make as much as fast as you can, and get out quick (or shift the assests to
a legally untouchable holding company). Customer related business
practices these days make me cringe. Everything business these days relates
to the bottom dollar, even ethics. There is a cold hard assessment of the
cost/benefit ratio of operating ethically, from producing killer SUV tires,
to calculating the return on forcing an insurance customer to sue for a
settlement, to insisting on a spouse's buyout of his dead wife's cellphone
contract. This is the new business world. Actually, it is recycled from the
1890's, but it seems new.

It's probably time to revisit the corporation laws and constitutional
interpretations bestowing the legal status of 'individual' upon
corporations, but don't look for it to happen in this political atmosphere.
In any case, there still are some good corporate citizens and many good
small proprietorships out there. When you find one of these, it is your
duty to support it if you can. Otherwise we are all doomed to end up as
economic fodder. But enough of that.

Here are some of the things that I try to do that don't cost a lot, but
make a big difference. Realizing that it is very difficult to change a bad
root situation long after its onset, I have instituted procedures to begin
correcting root problems at the seedling/cutting/grafting stage where it's
easy. Since I am a production nursery, albeit a tiny one, I have to able to
do this efficiently. Simple things like how you put soil in the pot when
planting or transplanting liners can make a big difference. if you stick
the rooted plant in the pot and then fill it with soil, the soil will push
the roots downward close to the trunk, like closing an umbrella. But, if
you fill the pot half full of soil and then gently plunge the plant in the
soil, the roots, especially the upper roots, flare outward and away from
the trunk, then you can fill the rest of the pot and mantain a nice radial
pattern. This costs almost nothing but it sets the stage for a lifetime. I
have also written a whole article on treating bareroot seedlings to get
high survival rates and good radial root patterns in the article at the
website on Pruning Bareroot Seedlings.

Grafting is another area where some minor attention to detail can lead to
vastly superior results. Grafts are not like seedlings and cuttings. These
are _expensive_ to produce. First you have to sacrifice an existing plant
(the understock), then you have to undergo a labor intensive operation to
create the graft. Then you have to sink capital into a facility for
aftercare. And in the end, the losses are usually higher than for other
forms of propagation. Take all of these problems and then add in the fact
that bonsai requires _special_ grafting procedures, then you see that
serious time/money is involved. But again, some things that are easy to do
can make a big difference. First, low grafting will actually give you a
nebari near the union (unobtainable in nearly all other commercial grafts
without the additional process of airlayering!). Starting before this
stage, preparation of the understock can make the grafting easier and begin
the process of nebari formation. Seedling plants (pines mostly) can be
potted high (roots above the rim) and the surface roots arranged radially,
circling roots removed, etc, and then the crown mounded with soil. When it
comes time to graft, the mounded soil is washed away revealing what will
ultimately become the nebari. Not only can you graft just above this point,
you also plan the front of the tree based on nebari before it is even
grafted!. Once the graft takes, a further refinement can occur when it is
removed from the small liner/grafting pot into a one gallon can.

These things are cheap and easy. At the one gallon stage and larger, things
get more difficult, a lot more difficult. Now, we are talking the use of
serious tools, labor and knowledge on plants that have a lot of
time/labor/money already invested in them. Doing all the easy stuff above
really helps a lot, but there are still going to be major problems to solve
on most plants once they move from liner to one gallon (shohin) stock.
There are two major problems: correction of surface roots and removal of
heavy bottom and lower roots. Despite my best efforts, production one
gallon plants will very often form overly large surface roots that have to
be removed, cut back, or split to improve the nebari. These are usually
serious roots upon which the tree may receive a critical amount of support.
I have come up with a strategy based upon a good working generalization:
Upon any typical repotting of a basically healthy plant, you can remove ONE
large surface root. After two or three repottings, this should cure even
the worst offenders.

Removing soil and exposing roots on one gallon and larger stock is a
daunting procedure. You all know how long this takes and how hard it can
be, even physically demanding. How can a typical commercial grower do this
kind of labor intensive work and still be able to sell a plant at a price
that the market will bear? I have solved this problem, hopefully, with two
tools: the axe and the hose. First I give the victim a good hosing off to
remove the upper layer of soil and the outside soil, if any. This is the
easy part, and it allows inspection of the roots, especially the nebari
area again. If the surface rooting is basically ok, I just proceed to comb
out the surface roots with a root hook and chop off the heavy lower portion
of the roots. It is difficult to generalize how much because it depends on
the species, the health of the plant, and the time of the year, but
basically, it is around 1/3 to 1/2 the root depth. This is only if
necessary. Sometimes there will only be a thick layer of roots only in the
bottom inch or so that needs to be whacked. If one of the large surface is
going to be removed, then this procedure has to be reconsidered. As much as
possible, the major root and all its little branched roots need to be
removed to see what's left to determine how much, if any, additional root
pruning is possible.

Now, to be perfect honest, do all the plants I sell (liner and one gallon)
have excellent surface rooting (nebari) without extensive root bound
conditions? No, emphatically no, but they are better than most. At least I
have made a start. Where economically feasible, I do the best I can do and
still make a modest living, but you will still have a lot of work to do.
For one thing, nebari, especially in beginning plants, is not a static
situation. A lot can go wrong from the time I repot until the time I sell a
plant. Secondly, I think very few of us really appreciate how hard it is to
form an _excellent_ nebari as opposed to even a _reasonable_ nebari. In the
worst cases, all you can do is cut off the entire root system and start
over via airlayering. I have plants like this, bonsai that I started
fifteen years ago, and never got around to nebari correction. Now they are
bonsai with exquisite trunks, branches, and ramification, but not even
showable because the nebari is hideous. So, this year, I will bite the
bullet, layer them off and start a five to ten year process of decent
nebari formation. Hey it's only another decade...



Brent in Northern California
Evergreen Gardenworks USDA Zone 8 Sunset Zone 14

http://www.EvergreenGardenworks.com

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by Jarbas Godoy ++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++

At 10:03 PM 1/6/04 -0500, wrote:
In a recent issue of International Bonsai magazine, there was a very
instructive article about roots, especially nebari. It should be required
reading for
anyone who sells bonsai. Cheap mallsai and garden center shrubs are one thing,
but I should not pay good money to an established well-known bonsai nursery
for a semifinished tree in a bonsai pot, or even a semi-starter plant, and
find
a disaster when I go to repot it. I have found the ground level four inches
above the root ball, the roots all tangled up in a knot from the original
cutting pot, a nebari consisting of two or three large roots not even at
the same
level, strangler roots, or other unspeakable horrors.
Yes, I realize that it is labor intensive for you to prune and straighten out
the roots of a young tree when you repot it. But looking back on the root
problems I have struggled with, I would rather pay a few dollars more for
a tree
with decent roots. With a professional bonsai nursery, it shouldn't be What
You See is What You Get and Let the Buyer Beware. We amateurs should be
able to
trust you to sell stock with the invisible part as good as the visible part,
or at least reasonably usable.
When you buy an appliance or other inanimate object, there is an implied
warranty that the item will do what it is being sold to do
("merchantability").
When you buy bonsai stock, there should be an implied warranty that the
plant is
suitable for bonsai, including the root system.
This is also a warning to the beginning amateurs. When you buy a tree,
especially an expensive one, be sure to poke around the roots under the
soil level
to see exactly what you are getting. Sometimes the problem is that the
retailer
buys already potted trees from a wholesale nursery & resells them as is.
Repotting each tree in a shipment would make them too expensive. Buyers should
examine these trees very carefully.
Iris

Iris

I agree with you, and as a grower, I agonize over this issue. It _is_
expensive to produce plants with a proper root system for bonsai.

I haven't read the article you mention, but I have developed my own set of
techniques from root pruning and repotting thousands of plants a year. More
on this later, but first I want to address the economics issue. First, let
me thank all of you who do appreciate the extra effort and expense that it
takes, and have shown this appreciation by buying quality plants from
reputable and qualified growers. Ultimately, this support is what will
change the system. No business is going to create a product for which there
is no demand or no expectation of a demand in the future. It's not going to
happen. This is one of the reasons I spend SO much time on the
horticultural aspects of bonsai education.

For those of you who complain about the quality of stock from Wal-Mart, all
I can say is bon appetit. Why are even considering buying from big box
stores if you aren't planning on starting over at almost every level of
development save the trunk caliper? To mallsai growers and bonsai growers
who just don't care, I say I hope you will get your just rewards, but in
fact, these are the only people making any money. To globalize the thought
a bit (and I apologize as I drag out the soapbox), this is not only
happening in bonsai, but rather it appears to be the new business mantra:
Make as much as fast as you can, and get out quick (or shift the assests to
a legally untouchable holding company). Customer related business
practices these days make me cringe. Everything business these days relates
to the bottom dollar, even ethics. There is a cold hard assessment of the
cost/benefit ratio of operating ethically, from producing killer SUV tires,
to calculating the return on forcing an insurance customer to sue for a
settlement, to insisting on a spouse's buyout of his dead wife's cellphone
contract. This is the new business world. Actually, it is recycled from the
1890's, but it seems new.

It's probably time to revisit the corporation laws and constitutional
interpretations bestowing the legal status of 'individual' upon
corporations, but don't look for it to happen in this political atmosphere.
In any case, there still are some good corporate citizens and many good
small proprietorships out there. When you find one of these, it is your
duty to support it if you can. Otherwise we are all doomed to end up as
economic fodder. But enough of that.

Here are some of the things that I try to do that don't cost a lot, but
make a big difference. Realizing that it is very difficult to change a bad
root situation long after its onset, I have instituted procedures to begin
correcting root problems at the seedling/cutting/grafting stage where it's
easy. Since I am a production nursery, albeit a tiny one, I have to able to
do this efficiently. Simple things like how you put soil in the pot when
planting or transplanting liners can make a big difference. if you stick
the rooted plant in the pot and then fill it with soil, the soil will push
the roots downward close to the trunk, like closing an umbrella. But, if
you fill the pot half full of soil and then gently plunge the plant in the
soil, the roots, especially the upper roots, flare outward and away from
the trunk, then you can fill the rest of the pot and mantain a nice radial
pattern. This costs almost nothing but it sets the stage for a lifetime. I
have also written a whole article on treating bareroot seedlings to get
high survival rates and good radial root patterns in the article at the
website on Pruning Bareroot Seedlings.

Grafting is another area where some minor attention to detail can lead to
vastly superior results. Grafts are not like seedlings and cuttings. These
are _expensive_ to produce. First you have to sacrifice an existing plant
(the understock), then you have to undergo a labor intensive operation to
create the graft. Then you have to sink capital into a facility for
aftercare. And in the end, the losses are usually higher than for other
forms of propagation. Take all of these problems and then add in the fact
that bonsai requires _special_ grafting procedures, then you see that
serious time/money is involved. But again, some things that are easy to do
can make a big difference. First, low grafting will actually give you a
nebari near the union (unobtainable in nearly all other commercial grafts
without the additional process of airlayering!). Starting before this
stage, preparation of the understock can make the grafting easier and begin
the process of nebari formation. Seedling plants (pines mostly) can be
potted high (roots above the rim) and the surface roots arranged radially,
circling roots removed, etc, and then the crown mounded with soil. When it
comes time to graft, the mounded soil is washed away revealing what will
ultimately become the nebari. Not only can you graft just above this point,
you also plan the front of the tree based on nebari before it is even
grafted!. Once the graft takes, a further refinement can occur when it is
removed from the small liner/grafting pot into a one gallon can.

These things are cheap and easy. At the one gallon stage and larger, things
get more difficult, a lot more difficult. Now, we are talking the use of
serious tools, labor and knowledge on plants that have a lot of
time/labor/money already invested in them. Doing all the easy stuff above
really helps a lot, but there are still going to be major problems to solve
on most plants once they move from liner to one gallon (shohin) stock.
There are two major problems: correction of surface roots and removal of
heavy bottom and lower roots. Despite my best efforts, production one
gallon plants will very often form overly large surface roots that have to
be removed, cut back, or split to improve the nebari. These are usually
serious roots upon which the tree may receive a critical amount of support.
I have come up with a strategy based upon a good working generalization:
Upon any typical repotting of a basically healthy plant, you can remove ONE
large surface root. After two or three repottings, this should cure even
the worst offenders.

Removing soil and exposing roots on one gallon and larger stock is a
daunting procedure. You all know how long this takes and how hard it can
be, even physically demanding. How can a typical commercial grower do this
kind of labor intensive work and still be able to sell a plant at a price
that the market will bear? I have solved this problem, hopefully, with two
tools: the axe and the hose. First I give the victim a good hosing off to
remove the upper layer of soil and the outside soil, if any. This is the
easy part, and it allows inspection of the roots, especially the nebari
area again. If the surface rooting is basically ok, I just proceed to comb
out the surface roots with a root hook and chop off the heavy lower portion
of the roots. It is difficult to generalize how much because it depends on
the species, the health of the plant, and the time of the year, but
basically, it is around 1/3 to 1/2 the root depth. This is only if
necessary. Sometimes there will only be a thick layer of roots only in the
bottom inch or so that needs to be whacked. If one of the large surface is
going to be removed, then this procedure has to be reconsidered. As much as
possible, the major root and all its little branched roots need to be
removed to see what's left to determine how much, if any, additional root
pruning is possible.

Now, to be perfect honest, do all the plants I sell (liner and one gallon)
have excellent surface rooting (nebari) without extensive root bound
conditions? No, emphatically no, but they are better than most. At least I
have made a start. Where economically feasible, I do the best I can do and
still make a modest living, but you will still have a lot of work to do.
For one thing, nebari, especially in beginning plants, is not a static
situation. A lot can go wrong from the time I repot until the time I sell a
plant. Secondly, I think very few of us really appreciate how hard it is to
form an _excellent_ nebari as opposed to even a _reasonable_ nebari. In the
worst cases, all you can do is cut off the entire root system and start
over via airlayering. I have plants like this, bonsai that I started
fifteen years ago, and never got around to nebari correction. Now they are
bonsai with exquisite trunks, branches, and ramification, but not even
showable because the nebari is hideous. So, this year, I will bite the
bullet, layer them off and start a five to ten year process of decent
nebari formation. Hey it's only another decade...



Brent in Northern California
Evergreen Gardenworks USDA Zone 8 Sunset Zone 14

http://www.EvergreenGardenworks.com

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by Jarbas Godoy ++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++

At 10:03 PM 1/6/04 -0500, wrote:
In a recent issue of International Bonsai magazine, there was a very
instructive article about roots, especially nebari. It should be required
reading for
anyone who sells bonsai. Cheap mallsai and garden center shrubs are one thing,
but I should not pay good money to an established well-known bonsai nursery
for a semifinished tree in a bonsai pot, or even a semi-starter plant, and
find
a disaster when I go to repot it. I have found the ground level four inches
above the root ball, the roots all tangled up in a knot from the original
cutting pot, a nebari consisting of two or three large roots not even at
the same
level, strangler roots, or other unspeakable horrors.
Yes, I realize that it is labor intensive for you to prune and straighten out
the roots of a young tree when you repot it. But looking back on the root
problems I have struggled with, I would rather pay a few dollars more for
a tree
with decent roots. With a professional bonsai nursery, it shouldn't be What
You See is What You Get and Let the Buyer Beware. We amateurs should be
able to
trust you to sell stock with the invisible part as good as the visible part,
or at least reasonably usable.
When you buy an appliance or other inanimate object, there is an implied
warranty that the item will do what it is being sold to do
("merchantability").
When you buy bonsai stock, there should be an implied warranty that the
plant is
suitable for bonsai, including the root system.
This is also a warning to the beginning amateurs. When you buy a tree,
especially an expensive one, be sure to poke around the roots under the
soil level
to see exactly what you are getting. Sometimes the problem is that the
retailer
buys already potted trees from a wholesale nursery & resells them as is.
Repotting each tree in a shipment would make them too expensive. Buyers should
examine these trees very carefully.
Iris

Iris

I agree with you, and as a grower, I agonize over this issue. It _is_
expensive to produce plants with a proper root system for bonsai.

I haven't read the article you mention, but I have developed my own set of
techniques from root pruning and repotting thousands of plants a year. More
on this later, but first I want to address the economics issue. First, let
me thank all of you who do appreciate the extra effort and expense that it
takes, and have shown this appreciation by buying quality plants from
reputable and qualified growers. Ultimately, this support is what will
change the system. No business is going to create a product for which there
is no demand or no expectation of a demand in the future. It's not going to
happen. This is one of the reasons I spend SO much time on the
horticultural aspects of bonsai education.

For those of you who complain about the quality of stock from Wal-Mart, all
I can say is bon appetit. Why are even considering buying from big box
stores if you aren't planning on starting over at almost every level of
development save the trunk caliper? To mallsai growers and bonsai growers
who just don't care, I say I hope you will get your just rewards, but in
fact, these are the only people making any money. To globalize the thought
a bit (and I apologize as I drag out the soapbox), this is not only
happening in bonsai, but rather it appears to be the new business mantra:
Make as much as fast as you can, and get out quick (or shift the assests to
a legally untouchable holding company). Customer related business
practices these days make me cringe. Everything business these days relates
to the bottom dollar, even ethics. There is a cold hard assessment of the
cost/benefit ratio of operating ethically, from producing killer SUV tires,
to calculating the return on forcing an insurance customer to sue for a
settlement, to insisting on a spouse's buyout of his dead wife's cellphone
contract. This is the new business world. Actually, it is recycled from the
1890's, but it seems new.

It's probably time to revisit the corporation laws and constitutional
interpretations bestowing the legal status of 'individual' upon
corporations, but don't look for it to happen in this political atmosphere.
In any case, there still are some good corporate citizens and many good
small proprietorships out there. When you find one of these, it is your
duty to support it if you can. Otherwise we are all doomed to end up as
economic fodder. But enough of that.

Here are some of the things that I try to do that don't cost a lot, but
make a big difference. Realizing that it is very difficult to change a bad
root situation long after its onset, I have instituted procedures to begin
correcting root problems at the seedling/cutting/grafting stage where it's
easy. Since I am a production nursery, albeit a tiny one, I have to able to
do this efficiently. Simple things like how you put soil in the pot when
planting or transplanting liners can make a big difference. if you stick
the rooted plant in the pot and then fill it with soil, the soil will push
the roots downward close to the trunk, like closing an umbrella. But, if
you fill the pot half full of soil and then gently plunge the plant in the
soil, the roots, especially the upper roots, flare outward and away from
the trunk, then you can fill the rest of the pot and mantain a nice radial
pattern. This costs almost nothing but it sets the stage for a lifetime. I
have also written a whole article on treating bareroot seedlings to get
high survival rates and good radial root patterns in the article at the
website on Pruning Bareroot Seedlings.

Grafting is another area where some minor attention to detail can lead to
vastly superior results. Grafts are not like seedlings and cuttings. These
are _expensive_ to produce. First you have to sacrifice an existing plant
(the understock), then you have to undergo a labor intensive operation to
create the graft. Then you have to sink capital into a facility for
aftercare. And in the end, the losses are usually higher than for other
forms of propagation. Take all of these problems and then add in the fact
that bonsai requires _special_ grafting procedures, then you see that
serious time/money is involved. But again, some things that are easy to do
can make a big difference. First, low grafting will actually give you a
nebari near the union (unobtainable in nearly all other commercial grafts
without the additional process of airlayering!). Starting before this
stage, preparation of the understock can make the grafting easier and begin
the process of nebari formation. Seedling plants (pines mostly) can be
potted high (roots above the rim) and the surface roots arranged radially,
circling roots removed, etc, and then the crown mounded with soil. When it
comes time to graft, the mounded soil is washed away revealing what will
ultimately become the nebari. Not only can you graft just above this point,
you also plan the front of the tree based on nebari before it is even
grafted!. Once the graft takes, a further refinement can occur when it is
removed from the small liner/grafting pot into a one gallon can.

These things are cheap and easy. At the one gallon stage and larger, things
get more difficult, a lot more difficult. Now, we are talking the use of
serious tools, labor and knowledge on plants that have a lot of
time/labor/money already invested in them. Doing all the easy stuff above
really helps a lot, but there are still going to be major problems to solve
on most plants once they move from liner to one gallon (shohin) stock.
There are two major problems: correction of surface roots and removal of
heavy bottom and lower roots. Despite my best efforts, production one
gallon plants will very often form overly large surface roots that have to
be removed, cut back, or split to improve the nebari. These are usually
serious roots upon which the tree may receive a critical amount of support.
I have come up with a strategy based upon a good working generalization:
Upon any typical repotting of a basically healthy plant, you can remove ONE
large surface root. After two or three repottings, this should cure even
the worst offenders.

Removing soil and exposing roots on one gallon and larger stock is a
daunting procedure. You all know how long this takes and how hard it can
be, even physically demanding. How can a typical commercial grower do this
kind of labor intensive work and still be able to sell a plant at a price
that the market will bear? I have solved this problem, hopefully, with two
tools: the axe and the hose. First I give the victim a good hosing off to
remove the upper layer of soil and the outside soil, if any. This is the
easy part, and it allows inspection of the roots, especially the nebari
area again. If the surface rooting is basically ok, I just proceed to comb
out the surface roots with a root hook and chop off the heavy lower portion
of the roots. It is difficult to generalize how much because it depends on
the species, the health of the plant, and the time of the year, but
basically, it is around 1/3 to 1/2 the root depth. This is only if
necessary. Sometimes there will only be a thick layer of roots only in the
bottom inch or so that needs to be whacked. If one of the large surface is
going to be removed, then this procedure has to be reconsidered. As much as
possible, the major root and all its little branched roots need to be
removed to see what's left to determine how much, if any, additional root
pruning is possible.

Now, to be perfect honest, do all the plants I sell (liner and one gallon)
have excellent surface rooting (nebari) without extensive root bound
conditions? No, emphatically no, but they are better than most. At least I
have made a start. Where economically feasible, I do the best I can do and
still make a modest living, but you will still have a lot of work to do.
For one thing, nebari, especially in beginning plants, is not a static
situation. A lot can go wrong from the time I repot until the time I sell a
plant. Secondly, I think very few of us really appreciate how hard it is to
form an _excellent_ nebari as opposed to even a _reasonable_ nebari. In the
worst cases, all you can do is cut off the entire root system and start
over via airlayering. I have plants like this, bonsai that I started
fifteen years ago, and never got around to nebari correction. Now they are
bonsai with exquisite trunks, branches, and ramification, but not even
showable because the nebari is hideous. So, this year, I will bite the
bullet, layer them off and start a five to ten year process of decent
nebari formation. Hey it's only another decade...



Brent in Northern California
Evergreen Gardenworks USDA Zone 8 Sunset Zone 14

http://www.EvergreenGardenworks.com

************************************************** ******************************
++++Sponsored, in part, by Jarbas Godoy ++++
************************************************** ******************************
-- The IBC HOME PAGE & FAQ: http://www.internetbonsaiclub.org/ --
+++++ Questions? Help? e-mail +++++