Procumbens unintentional ground layer, can roots be cut?

[SeanS]

I picked up this nursery stock procumbens a little over a month ago. It's doing well and I plan on keeping it in the grow pot for another 18 months while I slowly start styling and working on it.

It's got a pretty decent trunk but a large portion of it has been covered with soil while at the nursery and subsequently there are a heap of exposed roots coming off the trunk on the underside of the trunk. The trunk is thick and woody for quite a distance below the soil, the general shape is indicated in red.

The brown line shows the soil line and the green is the general area of roots in question.

My question is, over time can I reduce the exposed roots from that underside portion of the trunk and start exposing more and more of the trunk that's currently buried, creating a longer trunk to work with above the soil? If yes does this need to be done slowly over a few repots or can those expose roots be removed and the soil line reduced to my desired level in one go?

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

You can remove them, if they make up less than 25% of total root mass, you can do it all at once.

 

[SeanS]

You can remove them, if they make up less than 25% of total root mass, you can do it all at once.

Thanks. That makes sense, I don’t know why I imagined they’d follow any other rules related to root pruning when repotting.
I guess the way forward then is to decide how much of the buried trunk I want to expose with each repot and then balance the “trunk roots” and “normal roots” removal each time to stay within 25% total root removal.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Until you get it out of the pot, and actually look at the root mass, you won't know for certain. That is the fun of bonsai, not knowing until you dive in.

 

[sorce]

Welcome to Crazy!

Since junipers are root/shoot specific, it's always worth thinking about what those roots are doing.

If you intend to keep the left part of the tree, the right roots can be removed.

However, say you decide to cut those roots, and the left top (red). You will have severely reduced the roots necessary for the right top to live, so the entire tree may die.

Sorce

 

[SeanS]

Welcome to Crazy!

Since junipers are root/shoot specific, it's always worth thinking about what those roots are doing.

If you intend to keep the left part of the tree, the right roots can be removed.

However, say you decide to cut those roots, and the left top (red). You will have severely reduced the roots necessary for the right top to live, so the entire tree may die.

Sorce

Planning on keeping the left side, if I can figure out how to lift the main left branch up to get the tree taller. Either way I don't intend keeping the right regardless of what I do with the left, so I should be ok removing the right roots.

But anything can happen over time and I may change my mind. At least I have some of the answers I was looking for

 

[sorce]

answers

Also keep in mind you may get down to a cinch point, a "thin waist", if you keep removing stuff, so look lower, than cut high.

That said, I cut those surface roots off willynilly, they are usually only responsible for the latest crotch growth. Now is a decent time. Full moon in 3 days.

But a long slow game never hurts.
Cut a couple this moon, a couple the next.

Slow game all day!

Sorce