I am thinking in the next few weeks while my trees are still dormant I want to replace the Potting mix(Loose term!) on one of my figs. It is an unknown I picked up locally last year in the spring. It is in a large pot and the soil looks basically like just light brown dirt from a construction site or something. It is totally solid. The tree did not grow very well IMO last year. I doubt it is root bound.
I was going to just knock away as much as possible and replace with as much good mix as I can. Now I'm thinking I should remove all of it. What is the best way to bare root the tree so I can repot it? I was thinking about using a hose to wash it away, but I don't know if that is a good idea. Thanks in advance for any suggetions

Up to 5-gal size, I submerge the rootball in a larger bucket, let it sit til thoroughly soaked, and then shake and run my fingers through the rootball until all the soil is gone. Adding the new mix is done gradually with more shaking to get the mix between the roots. When filled, soak in a bucket again to further remove air pockets and then press down to pack it down better. Add more mix as needed and then it's done.

For larger pots, use the hose to loosen/remove as much soil as you can until you reach the densest part of the root ball and then decide if its worth it to get into that area or just leave it and fill as above. Works for me. Never had a loss. Good luck!!

Thanks you do this when they are dormant? I can try that out the only problem is I think its maybe a 15 gallon or bigger pot. Not that the tree is big enough for a pot that size, but that it what it is in.

Dormant is best but not absolute. I do it year-round as needed.

Thanks Ruben, I am going to definitely do it while dormant. I just need to be careful considering the size of this rock solid ball of dirt. I don't want to do to much damage to the roots. I kind of wonder how much root mass it actually has.

Sounds like they used poor ordinary soil from the yard. Since the tree has not leafed out yet, it will tolerate root damage well. Think about the bare root trees you get from a mail order nursery. You can't do worse than that! LOL

Very true, The tree can't do worse the last year. It did not grow at all and it didn't fruit. I was sure it was because of the soil, but I didn't want to do anything with it because it it was leafed out. I'm hoping this tree does better this year.

I bare-root almost all tree I get in trade or purchase to check for problems and lower the weight of the mix. For big trees I soak them in a big container and then use a hose and my fingers to work the dirt loose. If you plan on keeping the tree in a pot you'll thank yourself for doing this now. It will be way easier to root prune in the future and your tree won't be growing in a big chunk of dead weight.

Yeah, I hear that Jason. I probably should have tried it when I got the tree. The weight thing will be nice too. This tree is like a bag of bricks. I found a closer source for Promix. So that is what I will be replacing this dirt with.

I love Pro-Mix BX. It is so much lighter. For my older trees this year I am going to try Pro-Mix BRK. How much does your source charge? I found it at 3 places and the price ranges from $28-$40. I easily use 15 bales so it adds up.

This place is Rosedale mills in Hopewell. It is 46.99 for 3.8 cu feet of pro mix bx. They don't have any other kind. I was also going to call up the place you told me about on rt 206. If that's the 28$ place I might just need to make that drive.

Yes Co-op Growers is cheapest but they only carry BX. Most of their prices are very good. I am getting BRK at butterhoffs, they are $1-2 more but much closer to my house. I think Co-op would be 35-45 minutes from you. http://coopgrowers.com/index.aspx

Don't worry about "damaging" the roots. If it is indeed root bound, you will probably be pruning better than 50% of them.  If not, you don't really gain much by going through the process.  When I was growing in containers, I would prune greater than 70% of the roots away.  Here is an example:

james - how old is the plant you are showing above?

Yeah Jason for almost 20$ a bag difference I'll drive the extra 20 minutes. I am hoping I get better results overall switching to promix over the cheap stuff I was using.
@ James I dont think it is root bound, but the dirt it is in is really bad. It is rock hard it looks like there is sand in there too. When it rained hard last summer the pot would actually hold water above the soil after a while. I would have to dump it.

I would soak the root ball in liquid horemone over night and only remove 25% of the root ball at repotting.  That's my 2 pennies.  :))  I removed 3 from my orchard back in December and repotted them up.  They are stored inside my garage and doing much better now.

Eli,

This particular example was a  one year old tree and far exceeded the 70% mentioned.  My normal approach was to root prune for the container the tree was going into.  First, I would cut the length down to about 2-3" shy of the radius of the container.  If, it was going into a 10"D container, I would cut the roots to about 3" long.  Then, I would thin out some of the thicker roots until I had just enough roots to effectively hold the tree in the container with a stake.

Root-pruning may stunt top growth for a short while, but it will quickly catch up and surpass a tree left in a root bound state.  I have not made any adjustments to the top of a tree to "balance" what was taken off the bottom of the tree.  To me it is counter intuitive to do so (no facts here, just my thoughts).  When we put a cutting into some medium, the stored energy in the wood is used to create roots.  Same with a full grown tree.  If you cut the top wood, you also cut the stored energy for the tree to push new roots. 

In the ground, space is not an issue.  Root pruning is not necessary.  In the container, there is limited space for root growth so it needs to be maximized.  Newer (thin) roots are more efficient at drawing moisture/nutrients from the growing mix than older (thicker roots) which the trees use more for anchoring.  By giving the tree as much space to grow new roots (i.e. pruning the old roots) you also give it's best opportunity to recover and best opportunity for continued growth.  There are no hard and fast rules for root pruning .  However, the more roots you leave, the sooner you will need to repot.

Once you bare-root the tree, visualize the root mass as you would trim it.  If it looks like there is not enough to support the top of the tree, it is time to move it to a larger container.

Jason,

My understanding of the Promix products is two of the basic ingredients are peat and vermiculite.  Both of these break down rather quickly and start effecting the drainage and aeration within the container.  I would guess the longest you would want to keep a tree in it before repotting is (maybe less than) two years.  As a comparison, Al's gritty mix will last 2-3+ years depending on how fine the pine bark is.  If you put your tree in a container larger than it needs within two years, you will be using excess Promix. 

~james

Thanks James, your comments at the end raise another question I had about sizing up the pots. I started cuttings last year they went from cups to 1 gal pots to 2 or 3 gallon pots and stayed there. They grew ok, but not as good I think they should have. I gave a starter plant from the same batch who used a bigger pot and better potting mix right away from the cup stage and their tree was double what mine were at the end of the year. The top growth seems still small compared to what I have seem with other trees the same age and also the size of trees in the same pot. When I put the trees in the garage for the winter they had lots of roots out o the wholes in the pots and in the ground. I guess my question would be if the tree is still small but it has tons of roots but not to much top growth do u prune it and put it back in the same pot? I believe I did not get good growth because I used the cheapest potting mix I could find because it was the only one I could find without fertilizer in it, but would think I wont need to go bigger then the 3 gallon pot considering the tree is maybe 18 inches, but if the pit is full of roots what should I do? I'm guessing if they grew well this year I would need to up pot at some point?

@James- Pro-mix is peat, perlite, and vermiculite. I repot every 3 seasons because that's when the roots need pruning anyways. The problem with the gritty mix is weight. I might break my back moving around 30-40 25 gallon pots with gritty mix. The pro-mix will be at least 1/3 weight. I do however like it for my small guys.

I posted in another thread that different varieties have different growth patterns.  I wasn't attentive enough to be able to say (other than a few) which variety does what. To be sure, there were some with disproportionate top growth or root growth.  Some would just not grow much of either and others grew quickly. 

Through experience and research, there are several factors that may contribute to poor top growth.

• Overheating containers.  Evidence is roots growing more heavily on the shaded side of the container vs. the other.
  
• Congested root zone.  Evidence is decreasing space between nodes on limbs.
• Nutrient Deficiency. Nitrogen (N), Calcium (Ca) or Sulfur (S).  All cause stunted growth
  
• Slow growing variety.  Evidenced by other people on the forum complaining how slowly it grows.
  

Unless there is evidence to the contrary, I would lean towards the Nitrogen deficiency, since you indicated healthy and aggressive root growth.  If the leaves on the tree seem to be a lighter green than others, it is also a good indication of N deficiency.  I don't know that I would buy into a larger pot causing better growth.  If you root in your growing mix, you can go directly from the rooter cup to a 3 gallon container without disturbing the roots.  That may give you a slight advantage in top growth until you repot.  

Were there any other symptoms besides stunted growth?  If you have extra rooted cuttings (and time), you could experiment with several of the same variety.  It will help optimize your operations.

I Though the leaves looked fine. I did see what a nitrogen deficiency looks like with and in ground tree. The potted ones looked ok compared to that. I think my friend used MG moisture control potting mix. I chalked his results up to the fertilizer in the mix. I do have multiples of some trees I can experiment with. I'm thinking a lot of it was just me figuring things out last year. Last year I had just wondered if I needed to keep uping the pots. I know it is not scientific, but a few trees that were a little older I used Scott's potting mix and they did seem to grow better.
Now the tree I picked up in the rock hard dirt looked like crap. The leaves looked ragged all year.

It's late and I'm not thinking of everything, but two more things I remember us when many if the trees I had last year did get a growth spur is when I realized the all had roots going into the ground. Also, I have to admit I bought the only potting mix I could find that did not have fertilizer in it. It was the cheapest stuff in lowes at $3 a 2cu bag.

71GTO,

Probably this crap: http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1269091259&postcount=15 . If this is what you used, you need to bare root your figs ASAP and use something else.

That's not what I used. It is a potting mix. I did make a topIc about it. Here is the stuff I used. Looking at it now it has a Different discription then what is on the bag. Im not going to say more expensive means it's better, but this year I'm going to go with a little better stuff. I think I just went nuts running around looking for a mix without fertilizer in it and when I found this stuff I went with it.
http://www.gardenpro.us/gpsoils.html
The green bag potting mix

Jason, I hiked it down there and they were closed, lol! Damn winter hours!!! I have off on Monday. I am going to try to head down there again. I think I need to do this bare root soon. I checked my trees in the garage and it looks like they are getting ready do do something...