Creating a Nebari and removing the Taproot of a young Bonsai

[Music] okay so now that you guys understand how to propagate the material what we want to do here is explain what to do a couple years down the road with the root systems of each of these plants to set them up to have a good nabari or surface root structure now depending on the propagation technique that you used that will dictate the type of root system that you have on the plant one two or three years down the line so what we want to do here is show you some examples of some different species that were propagated in different ways so that you can really understand what's going on underneath the soil and then of course how to set up the nabari on each of these separate examples so here we have some seedlings of pines these are japanese black pines that are one year old at this point we also have a japanese maple here that is a two-year-old seedling we've got a hackberry back here that's also a two-year-old seedling and then we have a whole bunch of cuttings of junipers that are one year in the process here so i'm going to pull each of these out of the pot here so that you can see the differences between cuttings versus seedlings we're also going to pull up an air layer here and show you what the radial spread on that looks like so again you know the nuance differences between all of these and then how to set those up for a successful mabari going forward so the reason that we want to set up the nabari at this particular stage in the development of these trees is because our goal really is to create as wide of a flare at the base of the tree as we possibly can this is going to help create thickening over time with the tree and depending on the species that you're working with it can also be aesthetically pleasing to have a very wide spreading and radial nebari now of course one of the best ways to create a radial nabari is going to be through the air layering process which we already mentioned but when you're dealing with seedlings and cuttings you're going to have a different type of root system underneath the soil and you're going to have to contend with different aspects of root growth on each of these to set up a nabari so setting up the nabari is very important this early on in the phase of developing a bonsai because if you don't do it now it's going to become much more difficult say 5 10 15 years down the line if not impossible and you may have to start over again so it's a very important step in the process and again i always start with the root system of the plant because you know starting at the ground and kind of working your way up just makes sense when you're building the structure of a bone side as a matter of fact you know when i'm selecting material like we've already mentioned you know you're going to want to look at the nabari first you're going to want to look at the primary line second and then the branches are third so since we're setting these up from scratch here basically we want to start with the root system first so we get that out of the way up front all right so of course here we have our two seedlings we're going to focus on the seedlings first so we've got our hackberry on the left here and our japanese maple on the right now these are two-year-old seedlings at this point but you could work with trees that are one-year-old seedlings as long as there's enough girth to the trunk it just depends on how much growth was put out in that first year usually i end up waiting to the second year and sometimes into the third year so that we have enough lignified tissue or woody tissue on the plant to merit working with them if they're too small sometimes you can damage the plants and they may not have enough roots to really work with so usually two to three years into the process after the seeds have germinated is just about the right timing to start this kind of work so what we're going to do here is pop both of these out of the pot all right and i've actually planted these in different mediums here so the japanese maple is in aoki blend you really don't need to use that when you're dealing with seedlings something that's a little bit denser like a potting mix for example is probably going to be a better option so i'll pull the hackberry out and show you here this is actually in just standard potting mix so the soil is obviously a lot darker here it's very dense this is just sort of pine bark finds and probably peat that's mixed in here as well but we're going to work all of the soil out of here and show you what the root system looks like so i recommend when you're working the roots out on a seedling like this that you do it with a chopstick rather than a root rake quite often you're not going to have a ton of roots to work with to begin with and you don't want to be tearing off fine roots with a root rake so chopstick can definitely help with this process here so in looking at the root systems of both of these trees this is about the amount that you want to see when you start working with them if there's much less than this i might put it back in the pot and regrow it for one more season before i start working on the nabari all right so you want to make sure to keep the root system of the plant very moist as you're working with it so having a spray bottle on hand is an absolute necessity so what we want to do here is now assess the root system of the plant and cut certain things back so when you're dealing with seedlings you're always going to have a taproot that's that long root that's running down through the base of the plant all the way out to the bottom of the pot essentially so in nature the tap roots are designed to penetrate deep into the soil go as far as they possibly can to establish a solid base for the plant and then you'll get fine root branching off of that searching for nutrients but the taproot is the thing that's actually sort of locking the tree in place in nature now in bonsai we don't want to tap root we want a very shallow root system on the plant so our goal here today is going to be to cut off this taproot but we want to cut it off at a location where we're still leaving enough fine fibrous roots on the plant to keep the plant alive so for example we wouldn't want to cut all the way up to that last little root up here at the top because that's not enough to sustain the plant that's going to kill the tree off we've got a lot more fine roots down below here so we're just going to take off the sort of longest end of the tap root pushing the root system back i guess by about half or so making sure that we're leaving a decent amount of fine fibrous roots around the base here that potentially in the future we can work back to a much flatter root system so this is basically done in stages over the course of a number of years so what that looks like here to start with i'm going to go ahead and just cut the long extension on that taproot off right you can see that that shortens the root system up significantly now there is one other large root that's bifurcated to the back here it's probably a little hard to see in the video but there's another large root that's running towards the rear here that's not the tap root but it is an overly thick root so we're going to go ahead and remove that you want to make sure that whatever roots you're cutting off if they're large roots that they don't have a ton of fibrous roots out at the end you can see that's all that we're going to be losing by cutting this off so that's completely fine that's not going to harm the tree okay so that gets us a much much shallower root system now you can see of course that we have fine fibrous roots starting here emerging from the trunk and then as we work down into the root system even further there are more and more fine fibrous roots emerging on all sides down below so we can actually take off some of the fine fibrous roots that are a little further up on the trunk if the trunk is actually a little bit thicker down below that so in other words we're trying to create taper at the base of the tree here creating a wide spreading nabari if possible so if there's a fine fibrous root that's quite high up on the trunk and the trunk actually does continue to spread and flare below that root we can go ahead and take that root off which will allow us to create a shallower root system in the long run still with a decent flare to it so i'm going to go ahead take this little guy off right here and you see that was a decent amount of roots but we still have a ton of roots left down here at the bottom and this is actually a pretty radial system of roots at this point which is great so at this stage i don't want to do really any more root pruning i think that this is going to be enough to sustain the plant it also has reduced the depth of that root system significantly and you can see if i put it on my hand here it's a very flat almost radial pattern to the root system of the tree which is exactly what we want when we're starting the setup for a japanese maple or really any plant that was grown from a seed all right so next up let's take a look at our hackberry here you can see that the root system on this is significantly longer than the japanese maple but we have the same issue going on we do have a tap root here so usually the tap root is right smack dab in the center and kind of a continuation of the trunk it's actually a little hard to tell here because everything's entangled in the center but the tap root is this guy running right down through the middle here and of course we have a very large thick root running off to the side so my goal is to of course shorten the tap root we're going to go ahead and cut that back all right so not much fine fibrous rooting attached to that which is completely a-okay to have cut that off now the thicker root that's running off to the left side here let's see what's attached to that at the moment all right so that's pretty much everything down below that's hanging down here so we can't cut this entire route off here because that's only going to leave us this and this on the side here you can see that that's not enough roots to sustain a tree of this size so what we're going to have to do is just start to weaken the thick root here by cutting off some of the overly elongated fine fibrous roots down below that will slow the growth of that root down so it shouldn't thicken too much more over the course of this year and it pushes energy back up towards the upper portion here the root system which will allow us to produce more fine roots up here and then maybe in one or two years we can cut off that thick root down below here and have a very very shallow root system on the plant so sometimes it's necessary to take the cutting back of the tap root and the thick roots in stages or phases to make sure that obviously the tree is going to survive that's our number one concern at this point but we have reduced the depth of the root system by a significant amount here and we're getting a much flatter nebari at this point already all right now before we pot up the seedlings i want to talk about the various sizes and types of pots that are available and why i might use one versus another so the most common thing that i will use here at the nursery is a net pot which is something like this you can purchase these online on amazon there's all sorts of specialty companies as well that sell them they come in various shapes and sizes this is i believe a three inch maybe three and a half inch round net pot i also have a nine by nine square basket here which is also quite good so the nice thing about these net pots is that they breathe very well so they provide a lot of oxygen penetration to the root system which in turn will provide a lot of root growth and a lot of subsequent top growths on the plant so you can grow these trees out very quickly in these types of pots the one issue with these though is that they dry out very quickly so if you aren't able to water your trees on a regular basis meaning during the growing season probably at least twice a day these may not be the best pots for you in those instances you might want to use just a standard nursery container so we've got several options here we have the pot that one of the trees was actually already in to start with here which is just a very small again i think probably three and a half inch round pot relatively shallow which is you know something you want to find for the most part we also have a much larger version here which should be about an eight or nine inch round version of the pot as well and then i've got one here that's actually quite deep this is probably a more common pot that you're going to come across at nurseries these are really good for growing plants that are going to go into the landscape because you're not really concerned about the depth of the root system of the plant but because we're trying to create a very shallow root system and a flaring nebari i would avoid using a pot like this when you're developing trees from you know seedling cutting and air layer it kind of defeats the purpose of making a shallow root system so we're going to set this guy aside so if you want to go down the route of using just sort of standard nursery containers make sure you're sourcing something that is relatively shallow so much more shallow than it is wide so something like this would be great something like this would be great as well now in terms of the size of the pot when we're talking about seedlings you know if you're trying to thicken the trunk you might be thinking well i should put it in the biggest pot possible to have as much room for the roots to grow as possible that way it'll thicken up very very quickly well the trouble is we're dealing with very small seedlings or very small cuttings here with hardly any roots on them so if you were to take one of those seedlings that we just pulled out and looked at the roots on and put it in a huge pond basket like this or a big nursery container like this right from the get-go there's not going to be enough roots to absorb the moisture from the soil and you can cause root rot issues so you're actually going to end up delaying the development of the plant and potentially killing the plant through causing root rot by putting it in a pot too big too quickly so i'd recommend with your seedlings dropping down to a pot about this size maybe one size up from this and then growing it in there for a number of months or maybe even a full year and then potentially up potting it in a larger pot like this or doing something like a pot in pot so essentially growing it in one of the smaller pots like a net pot like this to start with for half a season or maybe a full season and then the next year instead of taking it out of here and planting it directly in the larger pot you can just sink the smaller pot in the larger pot with soil in there which will allow the roots to grow out you can take the tree out every once in a while shear those roots back which means you can keep a very compact root system on the plant while thickening the trunk a little bit we're going to talk more about this in detail in an upcoming phase here but just wanted to give you an idea of why i might select one pot versus another now for me personally i like using the net pots like i said so we're going to pop both of these seedlings up in the smaller net pot today all right so we're going to be using our net pot here and we're going to be planting our little seedlings in here so i want to talk a little bit about the soil that we're using here now you could use expensive bonsai soil like you know alky blend for example or you know mix your own components of akadama pumice and lava rock when the seedlings are this young though that's really not necessary so you can actually use just a standard potting mix and what i have here is miracle grow potting mix so this already has some fertilizer built into it it's a very dense soil but it's going to allow us to produce a lot of top growth in a very short amount of time which is one of our goals with the trees at this stage of development and again in the next section here the next phase we're going to talk more about trunk thickening and all of those aspects of it but one element of that is having a slightly denser soil so we're going to use that in the net pot here i'm going to pour some of this in here and then we're going to put the seedling in and show you how to sort of flare out the roots a little bit right so we're going to do the exact same thing here with the japanese maple filling up the net pot here with the soil i usually want to pack this down in the bottom a little bit before i stick the tree on here that way the soil is flat and then i can set the root system and sort of flare it out flat within the pot here all right then we're going to backfill the rest of this in just like the other tree and take it out and water it all right so pretty straightforward that's how we set up the root system on seedlings to develop a good nabari going forward the key here is just to get rid of that tap root now in the next section here we're going to show you the difference between the root system on a seedling versus a cutting because the way we approach those is completely different so let's pull up some of our cuttings and take a look at those all right in this section we're going to take a look at some of our cuttings that we have here at the nursery these are itoigawa shimpaku juniper cuttings that were taken just one year ago now depending on your growing environment it may take you two years to get to this point with this amount of growth but here in tennessee we're very hot and humid in the summer we have an incredibly long growing season starts in march ends in november so we can get a tremendous amount of growth out of these guys in a single year so what we're going to do here is pop these out of this container and i'm going to show you what the root systems look like because they are quite different from the seedlings that we just took a look at all right so you can see our seedlings here i'm going to go ahead and just take our spatula end of the root rake here and kind of cut this guy out [Music]

Channel: Bonsai Empire

Views: 41,976

Keywords: bonsai, taproot removal, nebari, surface roots, pruning roots, repotting a bonsai, bjorn bjorholm, bonsai course

Id: aaffPluGOwI

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 10 2023