It had been a few years since I worked the roots on this trident, and a crossing root started to emerge that needed to be dealt with. Ryan Bell mentioned he was working on a similar root problem on a trident, where he was exposing the roots, and undercutting the heavy roots. The idea, similar to layering, was to grow new, finer roots from the cut site.

Last summer; July, I gave it a go. Excavating the problem root:

A little more was removed, then the area was packed with sphagnum moss:

The tree didn’t skip a beat, and on March 1, I dug it to work the roots. Here was what I found:

Look at those nice plump roots!

Because it worked so well, I marked another heavy root with a loop of wire to remind me where to make the cut. I want to keep the cut on…