GROWING GOOD ROOTS IN THE NURSERY^©

I have been interested in roots during much of my professional career. Observing roots in natural settings, in water, in air, over granite rocks, provides a glimpse of how adaptable they are. In the nursery, we initiate them, prune them, and manage them in order to provide the best possible chance for them to grow and survive after they are sold. Sometimes nursery-grown root systems are inappropriately structured to enable the plants to provide the long term environmental and aesthetic benefits for which they were produced. This paper presents some reasons why growers should pay close attention to roots, some illustrations of good and bad roots, and repeats the cry for all nurseries to grow and sell the best possible root systems. Didn’t Charles Darwin say “the root is the heart of the tree”?