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…

Hello all and thank you for the continuing support of my outdated and neglected blog. For those of you who still care (or if you jumped ship and happen to see this I still love you) or if you’ve been left in the dark I hope to clear things up in this post. I recently (2 months ago) returned from an 8 year apprenticeship with my master Shinji Suzuki. It was an honor and great privilege learning from one of the best in the business and I continue to wonder how I got so lucky, but luck turned into hard work and now it is beginning to pay off here in California, the place I’m calling home for the time being. As a major transition thus far in my life, I hope you guys can forgive me for slacking off and not doing any posts since I’ve been back, getting…

I remember the days when moss was the enemy. The idea was that moss impeded water penetration, or kept the pot too wet. So it was a surprise when I was an apprentice that Mr. Suzuki encouraged moss to grow on the soil, and I discovered there were some advantages to having it there.

Shredded sphagnum moss on top of volcanic soil (akadama/pumice) at 1/8-1/4″ thickness, with shredded live moss added to inoculate. I often add ink to it so it’s not straw colored while the moss gets established. Be sure you use true sphagnum moss, not peat moss. Peat moss is rotted sphagnum, and tends to be water repellent when dry. The best sphagnum to use is sold often as ‘orchid’ moss, and is straw colored and is like a sponge when sprinkled with water.

If applied in the early spring around repotting time, a carpet of live moss…