I just bought a dwarf Hawaiian Umbrella tree bonsai, and would like to learn how to perform Ne-agari,or "banyan roots" in the future.

I am familiar that the concept is lower the soil little by little, gradually exposing the roots to more light. But, how is this done? What are the intervals of exposure and how much soil should be reduced at a time? Or, am I off, and the procedure is completely different?

Thanks to any and all advice!

Although Im not really experienced with these techniques to me it would be logical to do this with water. When watering, aim for the central roots so the soil washes away a little.

Does this make sense to the others? Anyway, please take a long time to do this; so the roots have time to protect themselves from sunlight etc.

Hey there

From what I've read and learned is that every year yoy take off little by little. I take away 1cm every year until I reach my desired goal. it is basically the same procedure as root over rock I think. It makes a lot of sense to me doing it this way but any bonsai guru's are more than welcome to correct me.

Hey man, what i have read is you can plant your tree in a wooden box which is relatively thin in diameter but long in length like 30cm for example. Then what you do is say every year or whatever time period you are comfortable with you remove a peice of wood from the box so that the sand falls away when you water it and you eventually land up with exposed roots. Hope this isnt too late

Cool, thanks for the advice!

Hey johnco101

Really nice illustration you gave there. Have you tried that method yourself? After seeing it, I want to give it a go. I've got a crap load of white stinkwood I can practice on.

Thankyou, i myself have not tried it.. YET. im pretty excited tho, guna do it with a Ficus soon. Im sure this method works great tho

The ficus should work very well with that technique cause they can withstand a lot of stress.

I've seen a article from Robert Steven where he talks about the ficus species and also demonstrates the differant styles that suites the ficus.

Nice im going to go check that out. Iv never heard of him

joncoh101 wrote:

Nice im going to go check that out. Iv never heard of him

He's work is amazing. A lot of his work that he explains is bit "higher grade" and I sometimes find it difficult to understand. He is a real perfectionist when it comes to bonsai.

I e mailed him a few months back and he said that he is coming to south africa in September. I REALLY wanna go. I hope nothing changes, cause I really wanna see him in person.