Japanese Maple Root Flare, should you be worried?

What's up guys and gals. I'm out here in the ridiculously wicked September heat in my South Georgia garden and I figured I could take a minute to talk to you guys about a topic that gets commented on a lot in the online community and that's root flare. So you just got your first Japanese maple. It's a little one-gallon tree. You planted it in a new pretty pot and or you planted it in the ground maybe. You took some pictures of it. You posted them online and you instantly got flooded with dozens of comments about how you planted it too deep or you need to expose the root flare. So what does that mean? What is the root flare and is it something that you need to be concerned about with your particular tree? All right so I figured I would start off by showing you a really old example. This is a mulberry tree in my yard. Root flare is not unique to Japanese maples. It's something that all trees have to some degree. So as you can see at the base of this tree it flares out. That's what the root flare is referring to. How the trunk flares out at the base where it meets the ground and starts to turn into roots. That's the root flare. So here's my amber ghost. You see how the trunk flares out at the base? That's what we're talking about when we comment on root flare and that's f-l-a-r-e not f-l-a-i-r. Now the other flare f-l-a-i-r that's what the leaves of your Japanese maple have when they show off their beautiful stylish colors but the flare of your tree the root flare of your tree f-l-a-r-e refers to this. So this is a pretty typical example of a Japanese maple once it started to mature. So this is a tree that's been in the ground for several years. It was planted as an already fairly mature seven gallon tree so it's got some girth to it as you can see compared to my hand there. And this is a pretty typical root flare if it's if you don't interfere with anything and just let it happen naturally this is what you'll end up with nine times out of ten. So I didn't do anything to expose this root flare. I just planted it how it was and even though it didn't have much of a flare when I first planted it this is what developed. So here's what a lot of one gallon trees are going to look like when you receive them or purchase them. There's not going to be much root flare at all it's just going the trunk's just going straight down into the ground and this is totally normal for a tree this size there's nothing to worry about. See if I kind of brush away some of the soil lightly here you'll start noticing little surface roots right there so it's not like this tree has been buried too deep. This is how the tree grew from seed. This root stock down here the root stock is basically from here down to there that's how the root stock naturally grew. You don't need to interfere with nature and start digging it up and exposing roots to try to find a flare that doesn't exist. You can dig as far down as you want there and the only flare you're going to find are exposed roots. There's not going to be a widening of the base of the trunk deeper down there. So a common mistake that people make and the reason why there's so many comments online about trees being planted too deep or the root crown or the root flare needing to be exposed is because maybe somebody new to the community will get a tree like this and they'll see this little bit of surface root right here structural root and they'll think that needs to be buried so they'll add more dirt and they'll bring the level up to here or even worse they'll bring it up to here and that's actually going to hurt the tree. You need to have oxygen exchange happening here gas exchange happening and if you add more dirt you're suffocating the tree it can't breathe and it could actually lead to root rot and killing the tree. So they're just trying to be helpful when they make those comments sometimes they get a little carried away and sometimes people that are new to the hobby that have already learned that are repeating it when it doesn't need to be said maybe it's just a little one gallon tree that hasn't developed a root flare yet and everybody kind of jumps all over that person and tells them it's planted too deep but at any rate they're they're just trying to be helpful that what they're trying to tell you is make sure that you haven't added more dirt and planted the tree deeper than it originally was. So here's another tree that I purchased as a one gallon and when I got it there was absolutely no sign of a root flare it was just a straight trunk going down into the ground and now about a year and a half later it's residing in a five gallon pot it's been up potted several times and you can see that it's developed a root flare it's got a definite widening at the base of the trunk here and you can actually see some of these structural roots over time have become exposed and that just happened by itself I didn't have to do anything special I didn't have to dig it up and start disturbing those surface roots it just happened by itself here's another tree that's been in the ground for about a year and when I got it it was just a one gallon tree just a straight trunk going straight into the dirt no flare at all and now look at it we've got exposed structural roots and quite a bit of flare there at the base now so this just happened by itself again I didn't have to intervene in any way every single one of my trees is like this I've got 60 some odd trees in the ground another 20 or so in pots so over 80 trees and the same thing happens to all of them you just plant them at the level they came and they'll develop a root flare this one's been in the ground less than a year and it was planted as a one gallon so you don't see a lot happening but you see an aerial root there and a little bit of flare at the base and I can just walk around and show you different trees here's my mayday got some nice aerial roots developing again I didn't do anything to that the Japanese princess over here some nice aerial roots developing so if you purchased a larger tree like this is a germaine's gyration that's been up potted a couple times and when it was a one gallon had no root flare but now you see it's got a definite widening here at the base of the the trunk and it's starting to flare out if you don't see that on a larger specimen if you buy a five gallon tree and you don't see a widening at the base then there is a chance that it was planted too deep and maybe you do need to do a little investigating so here's an example of what you should be seeing on like a five to seven gallon size tree you know it doesn't have aerial roots but it has a definite widening at the base of the tree and you can kind of see the beginning of these structural roots where they enter the ground that's just a typical root flare sometimes I think people confuse aerial roots with root flare so this is a tree that has a perfectly fine healthy root flare this is a this was a 15 gallon tree when it was planted last year so it's a good size healthy tree and it doesn't have much going on at the base there's a definite flare you see where it spreads out here and there's nothing wrong with this tree it's perfectly healthy you don't have to have aerial roots that you can stick your finger underneath to have a healthy root flare here's another one that doesn't have a lot going on this is a fairly good size elegance I think it was like a 10 gallon when I got it and it just has one structural root that's kind of visible but you definitely see the widening of the base there that's root flare not all root flare is the same here's another one that I got pretty big I think this was a seven gallon when I got it a couple of years ago and you see that widening of the base that's your flare but again this one doesn't have any crazy looking aerial roots or anything like that but it's a very healthy tree so sometimes you'll get trees that look like this straight from the nursery and that's typically because the nursery is somebody who is into bonsai or they cater to the bonsai community and so there's nothing wrong with a tree like this either both ways are perfectly fine both ways are correct and what you definitely don't want to do is try to bury this again these roots have already hardened off they have bark on them now they actually have a lot in common with the trunk as opposed to a root although they do still have micropores that allow for some limited gas exchange not as much as the underground roots that have little hairs that have gas exchange occurring these roots still do have micropores though so if you were to bury them they're not going to be able to do that gas exchange anymore and also it's going to cause root rod and insects are going to attack those you know wood-bearing insects will start to attack those roots so you definitely just want to keep it at the level that you received it in when you plant it and again both ways are perfectly fine whether you let it happen naturally over time or whether you encourage it to happen like this at a younger age just make sure that you know what you're doing when you do this but in the long run when this tree is you know six inches thick or 12 inches thick and it's 30 40 years old they're going to have a similar look regardless of whether you sped up the process or whether it just happened gradually over time they're going to end up having interesting structure at the base of the tree here's one last example this is my makawa yatsabusa and again this is a root flare that just developed all by itself naturally over time and this is one example that maybe you could spell it both ways this one has flare f-l-a-r-e and it also has some stylish flare f-l-a-i-r thanks for watching don't forget to like and subscribe we'll catch you next time