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‘Tis the nature of bonsai that even after 20 years of experience you can have real uncertainty about a routine procedure like root pruning. In this instance it was over root pruning a dwarf crepe myrtle I picked up on sale last fall. The uncertainty was over the date. I don’t usually do root pruning and repotting this late in the year (except on tropicals). The only thing I had to go on was the one concept I have depended on for years… repot deciduous trees just as they start to push buds.

The picture above is the lovely little plant as it was last fall. The label says this is the ‘Pocomoke’ cultivar. I was excited by the dark leaves and promise of flowers, but I wasn’t prepared for a tree that showed no signs of spring growth until the weekend the pools opened!

So while I am nervous about repotting at the end of May, at least I can say I had a reason for doing it. The green bits in the image above were completely absent two days ago. If I am wrong, I will be the one to suffer the consequences.

Let’s look at this procedure…

The first step is always to find the base. Beware of roots like the one I am pointing to below. It may rest at the soil level, but removing more soil may reveal a better flair deeper down, as it did here.

I used a chop stick to loosen the roots, and I removed as much of the garden center soil as I could with a hose.

I removed about half of the remaining rootball, untangled it as well as I could, and prepared a pot and soil.

After wiring the plant securely in the pot and chopsticking soil into the freshly cleaned roots, I made some big design decisions. Here’s what it looks like after removing some big branches and cutting back to a very rough silhouette.

Some of the branches will need wiring, but I made a conscious decision to put that off to another time. The tree has gone through enough for one day.