9-11-2025:

I think a lot of you 'Real' plant people (educated) would be embarrassed to tell this story.

As for me, I'm always looking for ways to increase my plant collection without breaking the budget. So here we go (some viewers may find the following article offensive). ;-)

One of my recent purchases beginning of June.

I wasn't looking for one but had in mind that I might add a couple of upright Junipers this season and while looking over the plants at a BBS, I didn't see anything I felt like buying.

As I was passing a large table with 3 ft. J. chinensis 'BP' in >2-gallon pots $$, I noticed something hiding in between the larger pots/plants, almost out of sight. I pulled it out and it was a smaller version of the J.c. 'Bluepoint' in a half gallon pot. Somehow got missed by everyone else that was there before me. I didn't look it over real good, the price tag said $10 so I brought it home.

When I went to plant it, I could see a real root problem.

There were some loops of roots coming out of the soil.

Being it was already June; I knew any root disturbance would be bad. So, decided to let it go until Fall or even next spring. Well, had some time today and I had watered this plant yesterday so things were nice and turgid.

I'm no expert but I can tell you what I did.

As soon as I removed the mulch, there were numerous roots growing out, away from the plant in every direction. I knew the plant had grown a lot since planting and looked good overall (and this time I took pictures) but this to me was a good sign.

I next dug a gallon or so sized hole, next to the slight mound the tree is planted on, so the soil would have someplace to go while washing the roots with the jet nozzle.

After washing some soil, you could see numerous roots growing out from the tree/shrub in the washed-out soil area that formed a 'gulley'.

As I felt my way around the root ball, I decided I would be doing more damage by trying to dig through the root ball to find the direction of those very hard, woody, roots and their attachments, so I ended up simply cutting off those two loops, in the hopes there is still enough other roots connected to support the plant.

The prognosis looks good! ;-)

Replaced mulch. 20 minutes of work?

I'll update later whether is lives or dies.

eta: the tree is/was rock solid so there must be more to the root mass than the errant roots.