Root Bound Benefits.....

[ghues]

Are there any?.......most of what I've read ......reviews the negative aspects of a tree being root bound. I've also learnt the hard was (RIP) what happens to trees that should have been repotted 2-3 years before it hit the wood pile.
However, I had always planned to dig up a few more Trembling Aspen(TA) "sticks" and make a grove/forest.....last spring I contemplated repotting the tree but I noticed a couple of suckers, so "what the heck" I thought I'd see what happens....there are now 4.
Maybe in a couple more years I'll have a little TA forest made from the mother tree which is exactly what it does naturally. I don't have to go far for TA inspiration.....see the large one above the fence....in the forest behind the house....still might dig a few and start another forest project lol.
Has anyone else got any root bound stories to share?
Cheers from the PNW.
Graham

 

[ghues]

Here it is in 2023, this year another 8 new shoots sprouted.

 

[caffeinated]

Aspen are notorious for growing enthusiastically from suckers. It's not from being rootbound, it's an aspen habit. This is how aspen forests happen, often they're just a single tree with roots and suckers continuing to extend. In fact I think if you google largest single tree, or organism or pando, or something like that, it's a singular aspen regenerating from the spreading roots.

 

[leatherback]

Are there any?

You mean, like, leaf reduction, shorter internodes and in general, slow-down of growth? Guess that is not relevant for bonsai development

 

[Shibui]

Growth slows as trees become more root bound. That can be good for bonsai as pointed out above but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing and when growth stops completely that's too far.
Most of the good bonsai I have lost have been those that were not repotted for extended periods.
AS pots get more root bound it becomes correspondingly more difficult to water the pots. Some trees that have died I have traced back to dehydration because the root bound soil could not take water.
I find it extremely difficult to keep very small bonsai alive for more than a year because the roots fill the tiny pots in a single year which means the pots cannot hold enough water to last a day next summer. Repotting each spring means I can now keep them going year after year.
Root bound trees also seem to suffer nutrient deficiency more. I guess that is also due to difficulty getting liquid fert into the roots properly.
A few older trees that died had also not been repotted for extended periods. Probable cause was root rot and probably because the organic components had deteriorated, maybe compounded by lack of air due to too many roots clogging the spaces.

I am definitely in the repot regularly camp.

 

[pandacular]

I am definitely in the repot regularly camp.

It's sound like you're really in the camp of "repot when it's holding the tree back", which is a good way to look at id you can identify that time.

 

[MaciekA]

I have several years of experience with populus (the native p. trichocarpa here). Trichocarpa blasts clones out of its roots just like aspen does. Trichocarpa hybridizes with trembling aspen so they're fairly close and behave similarly, but trichocarpa is quite a bit more vigorous. In my experience, the main risk of letting root suckers fly uncontrolled in any populus species is that they'll weaken and take down your upper canopy if it is beginning to slow down (or has become ramified) and those suckers either emerge highly vigorous or eventually become highly vigorous after being allowed to run. The risk of takedown goes up as the age of the upper canopy goes up. If I were the OP, eventually I would settle on some group of trees, delete suckers after that point as they emerged, and would make sure to manage the strength of all trees in the composition simultaneously so that one doesn't greatly overpower the others.