I bare rooted it and tried to rake the roots out a bit. There were no long roots at all, just a ton of fine roots extending about 1"-1 1/2" from the taproot. Speaking of which, I can see what you meant about a mutant corkscrew taproot. Fortunately when this tree was collected or repotted or whatever exactly happened, the majority of the taproot was removed. There is still a coil close to 1" thick just below the surface, but it is covered in finer roots. The rootball was probably about 4" across.
In the future, how can encourage some of these finer roots to thicken? Would they fuse together if I were to wire several together? Or would I just selectively trim the roots until they develop?
Also, I was thinking about your tree last night, Paul... And I decided I might as well take a shot at growing a few from seed. I suppose it will just be kind of a side project for a few years, semi-unrelated to bonsai. Just as an experiment. So I should be getting some white oak acorns in the mail soon, as well as some other types of seed I wanted to try. Japanese maple, yellow hawthorn, and a black flowering type of pittosporum were the others. I've read that seed isn't true to the parent plant... But I don't know if that's the same for all seeds. I'll just have to wait and see.
