I'm not the biggest container grower so here goes...the inquiry

I have a decent sized Japanese Maple with a piss poor root system....planted in a 25G container. It's too top heavy, but healthy ......grower just simply sent me a dual leader healty JM that was too big ontop with nothing much below.

I originally had rocks directly ontop of the root but ended up taking two conifers that I have in 3G pots that I am waiting to mature a bit before planting them. I'm using them as anchor weights I suppose.

So riddle me this .....is there any downsides to having something heavy ontop of where the rootball is. Does it keep it *too wet* in that area and might promote advantageous roots in the proximity of where I have the pots just resting, on the rootball - fairly close to the trunk.

I would call this 25G a low-wide pot shape, so the stake is not really firm in the container mix as such

The pots ontop of the rootball is keeping it from tipping and hopefully by fall, or at least early winter, it might be more -well rooted in-.