Hello everyone my name is Monica and this is my first time posting on this forum.

I have a Japanese green maple that needs root maintenance done this year and this will be my first time ever doing maintenance on a bonsai tree so I was wondering what to expect while doing this and to be honest I am pretty nervous to do so LOL this tree means a lot to me.

I dig your material!

This link may be of help:
www.bonsaiempire.com/basics/bonsai-care/repotting

Hi.monica,

Main thing it to take things slow.

Remove the pot. Very likely, the tree is wired to the pot. You can cut the wires at the bottom of the pot.

Prepare the pot for repotting with a mesh of the drainage hole and wires to rewire the pot. Ensure you have new substrate.

Then with a chopstick or similar you gently pull the roots apart. As a general indication: you can trim roots back to where they would just not reach the pot wall once repotted.

Continue untill you have.most of the old substrate out of the roots, always gently working inwards in the rootball, pulling fragment by fragment out. All motion it to be from tje trunk to the outside.

Once you get more experience you can get more extreme in trimming back, but be hentle the first time.

Take some pictures so people can afterwards give feedback.

Best would be to do this with someone experienced.

Leatherback gives some good advice... if you are willing to invest some cash, the beginners course here is some good reference material on how to do things... the video on repotting was very helpful to me..

Nice maple!