October 24th 2008
Root establishment after planting from container grown stock
The successful establishment of a planting scheme means that money was well spent and the area will eventually grow into the vision that the designer originally had. Key to this is the need to use good healthy stock with an established root system. Unfortunately some plants may well not of been in their pots long enough to of established a good root system and the bulk of the compost remains devoid of roots, but worse still is where they have been growing for too long in the pots.
How best to deal with the mass of roots, especially those that have ‘circled’? The RHS funded research by Reading University into this problem. Traditionally the method used to overcome this has been by ‘teasing out’ the roots or in extreme cases roots pruning out the most affected roots.
The results show that light pruning, severing with a sharp knife 10mm of (exclusively fine, up to 2mm in diameter) roots in the medium from all sides of the root ball encouraged new growth in the two species tested Buddleja davidii ‘Summer Beauty’ (fast growing and easy to establish)
and Cistus ‘Snow Fire’ (generally short-lived and with slow-growing roots that are often a cause of its short life span).
Care taken preparing the soil before planting and then handling the plant and ensuring it is correctly planted will go a long way towards a successful outcome. It always pays to ‘do things properly’.
Container stock
