Given what's visible at the surface, what might be hidden from view? Even the tortured looking tree in the second pic is salvable, though there is some concern that the large wounds left after correcting the root issues might open the tree to disease-causing organisms, leading to a structural failure somewhere down the road, so I think I would look into a refund or replacement tree if root work was something foreign to me.

I'm comfortable navigating a root system, so I'd lift the tree pictured in the ground come spring, bare root, and correct all the root issues before I replanted the tree. Since the tree would be in a post dormant quiescent stage, the tree will tend to only activate the beds it's capable of keeping hydrated. As the roots recover, it will activate additional quiescent buds. If the pruning required to correct the problems and there are branches important to the grower's vision for the tree's future appearance, a reduction in the top mass would prevent the tree from shedding branches that might seem random to us, but logical seen from the tree's perspective.

IMO, the post you linked to illustrates a couple of important points - 1) why we should bare root and correct root issues before planting out, and why we should get past the feeling that roots are off limits. An extremely high % of growers have an unwarranted fear that any disturbance of the root system virtually ensures loss of the plant or some other form of horticultural horror to be dealt with. Root pruning can have the same rejuvenating effect as pruning the top, and the closer to the root to shoot transition zone we prune, the greater the effect. For me, it's an essential and invaluable tool.

Al

Al

Thank you for taking time to answer.

Rina

Al {{gwi:2595}}

It sounds like the grower is terrible. The real solution is for that poster to stop buying crap from growers. Nothing will ever change if people keep giving them money for plants tht look like that.