Elaine’s root pruning technique

[FJ and G]

I found this item on Pg 42 Jun06 GRR rather interesting and perhaps very useful (summarizing):

Elaine takes trees out of pot, prunes some of roots. Puts tree back into pot one size smaller. Removes bottom of pot. Places plant, pot into garden.

To keep established trees smaller without shocking them, Elaine picks one side of the tree to work on each year, i.e., east side one year, west side next, north, south and so on. Using a sharp spade, she root prunes each tree in the shape of a half moon; repeating the next year on another side.

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OK, this sounds like a cool idea (I can picture myself with a compass doing this).

Your thoughts?