i think he means to prune for shipping. And he ships bare root. Then it makes sense, since the roots will dry up anyway.

Of course, if old roots rotted, you'll prune them away too...

When i repot, some roots just get tangled and 'self-prune'. I usually don't prune beyond that. But i remove brown roots that are dead.

Hi everyone.

Carol - I have found in my
experience that almost all problems with newly potted plants can be traced back
to damaged or rotting roots. When you have a clump of dead roots around the
base of the plant they will very quickly sour the new potting mix especially if
over-watered and “normal watering” can quickly become “over-watering” if there
aren't healthy roots to take up the water.

When I divide and re-pot a
plant I use the same method that I used for many years when growing orchids; I
firstly chop off the lower half of the roots and then divide the plant as
required. With half of the roots gone it’s much easier to divide the plants as
there isn’t a tangle of roots holding everything together.

Once it is divided into separate
divisions, I then remove any dead or damaged roots. This often leaves me with a
plant with very little in the way of roots. I especially make sure to clean all
off the dead husk from around the “heel” of the plants as this is where the new
roots will emerge from, and the fewer obstacles in the way, the quicker they
can emerge.

The main problem with this
method is that it is quite hard to maintain stability of the new plant division
in the pot as it is “top heavy” with very little in the way of roots to anchor
it. You don’t want to plant it too deeply to help support it as this can cause
rotting around the base. Remember these plants originally grew on trees and the
base would never be covered, so I like to keep the base barely below the
surface of the potting mix.

To stabilize the plant until
it grows new roots, I support it with three stakes (bamboo chopsticks or
skewers) around the base of the plant. This provides adequate support until new
roots form and can support the plants themselves. I have heard people say that stakes
look unsightly, but the fact is, new roots won’t grow successfully on unstable
plants. The same thing applies if mounting on a tree or any other type of mount;
the plant must be firm and unable to move otherwise any new roots get broken
off each time it moves.

Every grower has his/her own
techniques for dividing and re-potting plants and the bottom line is that everyone
has different growing conditions and you do what works for you. Not everyone
will agree with what I do, but over the last ten or more years I have found
this method works well for me.

All the best, Nev.