Gosh, I’m always mystified with the different information I get from various sources, online, books by “experts” articles written by practitioners.
For only one example and not to take this as a knock please, it’s just an example of the confusion I have faced in the past five years with bonsai advice. I’ve also heard this advice from a number of other sources…
@shinmai writes,
- “Never, ever “blast” the nursery soil out with high pressure water. You’ll kill gajillions of root hairs. Tease out as much soil as you possibly can, and then gently swish the root mass in a five-gallon bucket of lukewarm water to remove the rest.”
Seems pretty straightford…. Yet in only one counter example after reading all the articles and books and posts I could find on azaleas in the PBM library of articles/ BN/Internet (Crazy? Yep. Well I was laid up for 18 months with a broken chest, so what else did I have to do?)
… International Bonsai #54 Developing Informal upright style Azalea Bonsai was the first article I found after a 5 minute search.
“….Care of roots. After pruning the branches The roots should be cleaned out. First remove old soil with a root hook or chopstick. Remove thick roots with a concave pruner or knob cutter. The gently remove further soil gently with a chopstick….“
Now wait for it….
“The final soil should be removed with a high pressure hose or a strong spray from a garden hose. The roots should be bare without any old soil. Cut the roots to fit into a training container.”
So being very inquisitive of nature and one who doesn’t like absolutes, I tried out both methods, just to see which worked best. Tub washing with a chopstick and a gentle flow on the water wand and using my watering wand up to full bore at times with a chopstick to clear alway all of the soil. Both lived and both responded similarly over time.
The only exceptions were when dead patches of roots were discovered, or big roots impeding a good nebari were reduced. As would be expected, these trees where the roots were impaired or need to be cut back took longer to recover, yet recover they did. In similar time frames.
A couple recent images, just for ground truth.
Now one could always say to me, sure it worked for you in a couple cases, but…. that was only a couple azaleas. Maybe you got lucky or were sloppy in observing. Hmm…. Absolutely no give on my part here.
Over the past four years I’ve done both procedures to
over a hundred different azaleas. obtw: Since I was getting similar results by last year I flat gave up root washing in a tub except of certain cases, in lieu of hose root washing. It’s generally faster and where the grower uses a gritty blend of media, like Riverbend or lots of bark chips like Kusa-farm and Nuccios pretty much the very best option.
Here’s the upper deck with over 50 rootwashed (either way) azaleas
Does that mean everyone, especially the first timer should do this? I’d recommend going slow for the first couple azaleas. Use a tub, chopstick and gentle flow on your water wand, just to get a close up view of the lay of the land. After all one should crawl and then walk before attempting running. But after that… Katie bar the door!
After all that I’m a bit more hesitant to accept blanket advice and absolutes.
In one more case I was told on BN by a very respected member…one can not, absolutely not grow azalea whips without a greenhouse. (This was before I installed two myself).
So being very inquisitive of nature and one who doesn’t like absolutes, I tried to do this… check out the bench
Ok I hope everyone takes this in good humor with an open mind. I’m certainly not trying to demean anyones expertise, knowledge or years working with bonsai. I totally respect you all and appreciate the chance to participate with some many awesome, incredible folks! I’ll just pointing out what all of us know… bonsai isn’t a perfect art…. Often it depends.
My apologies
@AnutterBonsai for stampeding all over your thread. Please accept my heartfelt apologies!
cheers! Now I gotta get back to work, those darn trees don’t wire themselves!
DSD sends
ps: I’ll be posting this as separate thread tonight. Title Azalea Wars - Waterwashing Roots. Please respond there so
@AnutterBonsai can have his thread back. Than you!