In this blog I want to show how I go about repotting and lightly pruning the roots of Japanese maple bonsai that are still in development. Note that the tree in this example is still being grown out to thicken the trunk. Since I want as much energy as possible going into the tree, I won't prune that many roots .
This tree was grown from an airlayering that I took about 2 years ago. The goal is to develop this tree into a shohin sized twin trunk bonsai. It's grown in a large ceramic pot to better control the growth. If you grow bonsai in the ground, you can expect explosive growth and you can thicken trunks really fast. There is a risk however; if you let them grow unchecked, you can expect bulges and inverse taper...
For young trees such as this; I follow some basic rules when pruning the roots. You're trying to develop a flat root base or root flare (Nebari in Japanese). So basically you have to cut roots that grow up or down, and only keep the ones the grow from the base of the trunk outward. This basic principle is very important in bonsai maintenance and repotting in general.
In the picture above, you can see I pruned two roots that were growing from higher up the base of the tree.
Since this tree is still in development, I left a lot of fine roots unpruned. Normally, you can safely prune the roots of maples very hard, but I want this tree to grow vigorously for the next years. After the trunks have thickened a bit more, I will prune it back hard and start developing the trunks again, letting them grow and cutting them back, to create taper and movement.
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