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Wiring roots 4 years 2 months ago #55758

  • Ivan Mann
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Five years ago I cut off a seven foot winged elm, and today was finally the day to put it in a training pot. The roots actually worked out fine, but one was bent wrong and I wanted to straighten it out, which should have been easy with the right size wire.

On branch on the tree went from about 4 mm to about 1.5 cm in two years, so I would expect lots of thickening in the future. Should I expect the same with the roots? If the root thickens like the branch, would the roots do the same? I can take wire off of branches easily. Could I take it off roots without doing essentially a repot? I really would not want to do that in June. Can I bend it somehow else?

BTW, my USA based spelling correction really resists typing mm and not changing it to mom. It argued quite a bit.

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Wiring roots 4 years 2 months ago #55759

  • leatherback
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I have found that roots fairly easy make side roots when growth is obstructed. How about just tie a wire around the root and pulling it? Or, of course, cut the root shorter and get it to regrow.
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Wiring roots 4 years 2 months ago #55765

  • Ivan Mann
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When I dug it up there was a long tap root running to the side and I put the tree in a pot with the trunk right at the edge of the nursery pot. Now after five years several small roots are half a centimeter thick and have a right angle turn pretty close to the trunk. I put it in a larger sized pot, cut the taproot and spread the roots out but three would not straighten and stubbornly refused to budge. Maybe next year I will look at that, if I decide to pull it from the pot.

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