Crab Apple root pruning

[TreeJey]

Hello everyone,
I recently bought a Malus Crab Apple tree and planted it in a pot today. When repotting, I found really thick stems in the roots. I tried to cut away as much as I could so that the fine roots could wrap around. But now I'm not sure whether I've gone a bit overboard. There were still some thick roots to be seen, but I was afraid of taking away too much. Do you think the tree will manage to regenerate?
Thanks and have a great afternoon

 

[MHBonsai]

Looks fine to me. Keep it from freezing and out of the wind for a while. And make sure it can’t move in the pot and bet it doesn’t skip a beat.

 

[Chop_n_Change]

Hello everyone,
I recently bought a Malus Crab Apple tree and planted it in a pot today. When repotting, I found really thick stems in the roots. I tried to cut away as much as I could so that the fine roots could wrap around. But now I'm not sure whether I've gone a bit overboard. There were still some thick roots to be seen, but I was afraid of taking away too much. Do you think the tree will manage to regenerate?
Thanks and have a great afternoon

I‘ve taken hardwood cuttings as thick as where your thumb is in the picture and they rooted in a season - you should be golden. (Y)

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Yep. Should be fine. Simplistically speaking, its a balance of competing ‘goods’.

On one hand
Cutting back hard can lead to aesthetically pleasing outcomes

On the other hand, depending on the amount of feeder roots lost with the hard cut back, the growth will be impacted strongly in the upcoming growing season.

Also for trees that have differential root paths (In other words roots in one side of the tree feed the branches straight up above them) a strong cut back of the roots one one side of the tree can cause a die back of the branches connected to them.

Certainly there are variations to this witness juniper twisty trunk live veins, yet these are also connected the to branches. Cutting the roots feeding these veins will of course kill the branches on the veins.

cheers
DSD sends

 

[TreeJey]

Thank you very much for your feedback, that really reassures me. I was really afraid that I would be able to bring the tree in the garbage at the end of the year.
I would also have liked to cut off more of the thick and fleshy roots, but I thought I would leave this until the next root pruning.