dug up butterfly and now?

it has two tap roots that are almost 3 feet long!! is it okay to cut these off? do i look for a taller pot?

everytime one of you writes something about "cutting this" and "digging that" It makes the pit in my stomach do alittle flip.

sounds like you may need a new back after digging that thing up:) tap roots usually dont like to be cut off, but I dont know about brug tap roots.

Arlene - I had to cut a lot of roots on mine to make them fit in the pots. They lost a lot of leaves ... but I took a lot of them off too. Does it have seed pods you're trying to keep?

yes, i had to tell myself it "it's just a brug".... so you'll know, this was a very well prepared hole, with watersorb crystals and tons of organics. it was a baby when i got it last fall and froze back. i put it in the hole at about 1 foot in the middle of march. if you don't have good organics and soil that will hold water somewhat (not a bog mind you), the lateral roots will go out all around up to 10 feet and it will be a bear to dig up.
do i cut off the tap roots, ot go buy a pot....those two roots are truly almost 3 feet long, and no real lateral roots.
DR, i have brugs i shovel pruned and pitched in the woods, still nicely growing although not very big, no fertilizer or water and sand for soil.

poppysue, no it lost all its seeds pods from saturday night's frost, so i decided to take it up. i have cut off lots of lateral roots and there would be twisted roots in the middle, but this baby put them straight down.... i am amazed.

Arlene,
I don´t understand exactly what you are asking for...
if you want to repot a brug from yard into a pot, you can cut all roots,it´s better than to bend them in pot.
Remove much leafes water one time after potting and than keep pretty dry. Brug will get new roots soon.
GL

Arlene, I had to cut back the tap roots on several of my big ones when I brought them in. They lost leaves and drooped for a couple of weeks but then perked back up. I didn't lose a one.

i have never seen tap roots this long. it lost its pods and most of its leaves from the frost. here is a pic. i was wrong, the 2 tap roots are 48-50 inches from the top of the soil. i hate to cut those long roots but where would i get a 6 foot tall pot?
Snow i have cut tons of fat lateral roots, i guess if these won't bend i can cut them....

This message was edited Wednesday, Nov 27th 5:51 PM

You dug 4 feet straight down? WoW - That hole is almost as tall as me LOL - sorry, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around a 6 foot deep pot. I'm no help here am I?

Arlene,
cut them away, Brug don´t need the two long roots.
smile.
GL

Liz, you would have enjoyed. i dug a circle around the plant, then leaned on the stalk one way and then another. then pulled it up. took me forever, well at least 30 minutes. before i've always had fat lateral roots running every which way. i wish i had just cut it back to about 3 feet and left it in the ground, would have been easy to protect like that.

Ludger, thanks. guess i can get this in a 7 gallon pot. Snow, were yours long like this?

I have a question, can you grow a brug from the roots that you cut off? I know that with some plants, just a little bit of root left in the ground will grow a whole new plant, but don't know if brugs are in that group. It couldn't hurt to stick the pruned off roots in a pot (if you have room for one more pot, that is!)

Ronna,
sanguineas and flavas can grow from rootpieces. The other ones versicolor, suavolens, aurea do´nt.

We say "rootcuttings" you can make it with Dicendra.
GL

Wow, I learned something here tonight. Sure glad we have some experts here to help with these questions. Arlene, you have more stamina that I do. I couldn't have spent that much time getting a brug out of the ground.

Arlene,
I did that once but the next time I chopped the roots off a lot higher up...getting to old to do all that digging....like Ludger said the roots will return.

You could always cut a few inches into the ground for say the length of that Butterfly and plant it horizontally. That way the side shoots would come up all along the base and act as if they were brand new Brugs. Not to mention the entire length of the Butterfly would then be its root system. Of course covering the Brug would keep it from freezing in the mild freezes we have in Florida. Sure wish you could have salvaged those seed pods though. Did it freeze much lower than you Arlene? I still have some seedpods down that way you know. I was planning on picking them up for Christmas.

Brugman, was not a terrible frost, knocked off some small pods and the open blooms. i don't think there is any real stem damage anywhere. butterfly got his pretty hard, out in the open, so i figure i'll pot it up protect it, have a jump in the spring. don't think i'm gonna be digging up too much more though. it was so strange, no big lateral roots to fight with.
I don't think you have to worry about any real frost south of here, not yet anyway. i have some brugs with blooms that have opened since the frost. culebra didn't lose any flowers. so far so good.

Yes Arlene, Some of mine that were in the back garden had very long roots. We cut them off and left about 1ft on the plant.

Ludger.... I had some visicolor peach roots that started to grow I still have one but have found that they grow real slow compared to a cutting didn't think its realy worth doing
Pete

Wow Arlene! My boy promised me he would dig up 3 brugs for me today. and I know he will not do as good a job as Arlene did. I will do what I do when I bonsai and just cut the same amount off the top growth as I do from the roots. Wish me luck!

Pete, its sounds very interesting, I´ve never heard about this.
Has it been a real piece of a root? Only a rootcuting?
Please tell more.

Kell, do you growing Bonsai? Me too. Would be funny.
GL

Ludger, i have baby dr suess plants sprouting up from shallow lateral roots. 2 springs ago, i didn't think a plant was going to grow back from freeze so i dug the roots out and planted seeds in the pot. a while later, several baby brugs popped up from the roots left in the pot. i've also dug up brugs, and they will come back from the roots. probably our zone, and irish has a better zone than me.

I want to talk with you about this.
May be the old twig was in earth?( soil )
And this twig did the new growing.
Very hope you are right. Please give time to me to translate my questions.
GL

Ludger, i'm pretty sure Cala did some experiments with rooting root pieces, but she is on vacation. Irish almost never gets frost, and i think his versicolor peach came from under the fence from his neighbors. if i remember right.

Arlene, I can visualize you out there now digging up Butterfly because it sounds like you used the same technique that you used on the banana pup that you dug for me. I will never forget that because I felt that it was an act of love for a gardening friend. I wish that my old back was not in such bad shape so that I could still do those things. On second thought that is probably why I have a bad back. Maybe it is time you stop doing all that hard work while your back is still ok. I bet you could talk Ricky into helping you.

thanks, frannie! i just know you'll have bananas next year, hopefully they will ripen for you. my maya is sitting in front of the washer/dryer. i dug it up at dark and didn't get it in a pot. it has just a few leaves left where it was putting out a little branch at the Y. i expect the pods will probably fall off.

Oh Arlene, I sure hope they don't fall off. By the way, I am watching the special on Elvis and I almost feel like a teenager again. Enough said LOL