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For all the content out there about bonsai, we continue to have limited access to information about root work. Let’s call it poetic irony that the unseen content aligns with the unseen part of our trees.

When we select a plant for bonsai, the roots are the one area we (usually) can’t inspect. Sure, we can check out the ever important nebari. Some of us have even been known to dig down into nursery pots with our bare hands to try to find the root base, but what can we really know about the root structure before we actually have the plant out of the pot and start working into the root mass?

Here’s a fir that I knew needed some root work when I got it. Visible above the soil surface was a root circling the trunk. This tree came into my care a year ago and I let it grow for a year so I could make sure it was strong and healthy before repotting and tackling that problem.

What the heck is going on with these roots?

To my surprise, when I got it out of the pot and pulled away some soil the situation was something different entirely from what I was expecting. Far worse than a long, runaway, circling root, what I found was a very thick root that emerged from the trunk well below the soil level, travelled UP along the trunk, split in two like a T, and then each bar of the T wrapped around the trunk in opposite directions.

Luckily, and perhaps partially because of this bizarre structure, there was a somewhat bulbous trunk flare below where the T root was strangling the trunk. this is the start of the tree’s new base.

The whole T root had to come off, and I am fairly confident the tree will recover well. It should be MUCH better off with this root removed, and it should turn its root growing energy to the much smaller radial roots that now sit just below the soil surface.

Problem root removed and replanted.

The cut is visible in the photo above at soil level on the left side of the trunk. Just to make sure you can appreciate how weird this was, I have drawn an orange line in the photo below to show where the root had been before it was removed.

Orange line shows where the root had been.

This tree is on its way to a much brighter future. With a little time the remaining roots will develop into a mature root mass that is much better organized and better looking.

Ready to grow on.