Montezuma (or Bald?) Cypress root help?

keegan

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Background: I am an intermediate bonsai practitioner. I have a solid knowledge base, take classes locally, and have about 50 trees. I live in Los Angeles (hot climate!).

I picked up this big cypress at a swap meet this weekend--I think due to the look of the bark that it's a Montezuma and not a Bald. I've got a bunch of other Bald cypress, and this one looks different.

Its pot is a SOLID (I mean solid) ball of roots. How best to handle this? My instinct would be to saw the rootball in half and then plant it in another container with some soil around it.

I know at least with Bald Cypress you can really hack the roots back without issues, are Montezuma the same? Any timing issues with this sort of work?

Another person I talked to advised that I should take a 1/4" drill and drill holes all through the roots, but not to trim them now because the tree is already in leaf--best to wait until next early spring to attack the roots. But the drilled holes would allow drainage and oxygen.

For all I know, the pot was sitting in standing water until the morning I got it - how else could you possibly get enough water into this root mass?? Also, there is moss on the base of the trunk, and I don't think that would be there normally in this heat... for all I know the pot was submerged completely.

Also, clearly it was kept near some chickens, as it arrived feathered. :)

Any help is appreciated!
keegan
 

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Leo in N E Illinois

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I'm not a good source for growing Bald Cypress in Los Angeles. I'm near Chicago and my BC won't wake up for at least 6 weeks. My summers are cool enough I can get away with doing things in summer a Californian could never do. So I'll let someone else answer the timing issue. Yes, at some point you will have saw, cut, comb out, and or something to address that root system. But let someone from your area coach you about when. Until then keep it standing in water.

Is there any way the vendor can tell you which Bald Cypress species it is? There are 4 recognized varieties, and depending on which authority you read, some are good species, some are just geographic races.

Type form, the Bald Cypress, common along rivers through out the SE USA.

Pond Cypress, found growing in lakes, rather than rivers and bayous, in I only know it from Florida, but possibly it has a wider range.

Texas Hill Country Bald Cypress, found along the Guadeloupe River, near San Antonio, and other rivers in that area. Usually considered a geographic race of the normal Bald Cypress, a few think it is a species distinct from BC. No knees, or at least I have not seen any. Grows on River banks, or just into the water. Almost no swamps in that region, so habitat is different and tree looks different.

Montezuma Cypress, only known from Rio Grande Rive and south through Mexico. Again no knees, often along rivers, different from normal or type form of BC.

The bark on your tree suggest to me Montezuma or Texas Hill Country Cypress. Can't decide which.
 

JosephCooper

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It probably won't be much different than other cypress, so you could saw 1/2 of the root off with proper aftercare.
 

keegan

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Update.

Confirmed that it's a Montezuma Cypress. I took it to my local expert and he said it wouldn't be a problem to do some root pruning this time of year. So I took a few inches off the bottom of the root ball and a couple around the circumference, repotted it into the same container, shallower.

Then on to the styling question. I had envisioned a formal upright to mimic a towering giant (incense cedars are gorgeous around here). And there is a decent front that gives a nice, mostly straight line. I toyed with using the bend a third of the way up the trunk, but it threw off my scale for the tree I want to create. All the exiting branches are also quite out of proportion with this idea. I toyed with stripping ALL the existing branches, trusting that it would bud back readily and I could spend a couple years building tight little branches. My teacher Roy Nogatoshi said he thought I should use the existing branches, so I'm going to try that first. Pictured is Roy doing a cut on the top of the branch and bending it so it can be wired down.

These trees are very apically dominant, hence the mess of branches near the top, and if left unchecked I'm sure there would be some nasty inverse taper. I will likely end up jinning the top.

We'll see how it goes! Thank you for the responses--I like to solicit multiple opinions and then decide how to proceed.
 

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keegan

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Update!

I have confirmed it is not a Montezuma Cypress. Then I investigated the Dawn Redwood theory--but they have opposing branches and leaflets. So I've come back around to Bald Cypress - alternating leaflets and identical foliage to my other BC. Maybe the bark looks different because this tree is older than it looks? Who knows.

But it burst forth with new growth, and I made the decision to start fresh and remove all the branches. My vision is to keep the growth pretty close in and use the almost stick-straight front of the tree to mimic a really tall giant - Doug Fir, Incense Cedar, etc.

I didn't like the dead top so am re-growing a new top and will make this more like a mid-life tree than an ancient one.

I was recently on a hike in the local mountains and saw this ancient Limber Pine and exclaimed out loud, "Now that's how you style an apex!" So maybe I'll try to do something similar.

I'll try to keep updating as time goes on.

Thanks for the help!
keegan
 

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keegan

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Yup, Bald Cypress. The foliage is not like Pond Cypress, so I think that's out.
 
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