RE: Is there an answer??

Here on the Peninsula of the San Francisco area a local arborist, Dave
Muffly, recommends "rootball massage" for trees. He also says  many
containerized trees and shrubs are placed to deeply in pots as they are
potted up to ever larger sizes at the nursery. He suggests removing the
plant from the container, gently scraping away the soil at the top until the
primary buttress roots are found. Sometimes new roots may even have formed
above the main roots and these should be removed. Then the root ball is
examined for encircling roots. If found they must be gently teased into a
radial pattern. Any primary buttress roots found to be girdling the trunk or
bent at more than 90 degrees are cut with using a clean professional shears.
Some roots are so bound that they can only be notched. 

Mr. Muffly organized weekend volunteer groups to help with root ball massage
prior to the planting of 350  15-gallon size trees planted along a highway
sound wall. He felt that the results paid off when only a very small number
of the trees failed during their first year,2007, a tough drought year. 

Susan Bouchez
Los Altos, CA
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