Autumn Colour

Spring is my favourite time of year, so I'm really jealous of all those bonsai growers in the Northern hemisphere whose deciduous trees  are just starting to bud and will soon turn green while many of mine will soon be bare.

The one consolation is the sight of these beautiful red leaves on two of my Trident Maple "weedlings", rescued at a workshop a couple of years ago when they were about to be consigned to a friend's compost heap.

The trees themselves are nothing more than sticks in pots right now:

With so many trees to care for, however, I'm planning to keep them really small, so the taller tree will soon be getting a serious chop. Not right now though, because I'm enjoying that colour far too much!

Trunk chops, when properly done, do work

My last post inspired a bit of discussion among my Reddit readers, some of whom were insistent that one can chop trees below buds. When I thought about it I realised that I'd expressed myself badly when I said that one can't. Provided you're working with a suitable species it's perfectly acceptable to chop a tree to a stump with no VISIBLE buds and have it produce new branches at or below the site of the chop. Unfortunately in the case I was referring to, I chopped way too low, leaving a stump of less than an inch in height and, it would appear, no potential for new buds to form. However I've done several successful trunk chops since then.

An early one was my best trident maple, which gave me a bit of a scare back in 2009 but worked out well in the end. It was a five foot nursery tree when I bought it and, having a long drive in front of me, I asked the nursery staff to reduce the height so that it could fit into the car.

At the nursery, as purchased

This was how it left the nursery:

Autumn 2009, before workshop

I was still pretty new to bonsai at the time and wasn't sure how to proceed so I contacted my mentor who told me to bring it to a workshop. Although it was autumn, he repotted it and cut it back to a more appropriate height - or so we thought.

Autumn 2009, after workshop

Despite repeated efforts to seal the wound, it oozed sap for about two weeks, which was probably the cause of its problems in early spring. New growth was slow to appear and for a while I really feared for its life. And when new branches finally sprouted, they appeared about half way down the trunk:

Summer 2009

I had no choice but to cut the tree back to where there was new growth:

Summer 2009. after the second chop

With the benefit of hindsight the original chop would probably have left me with a tree that was far too tall and thin, so everything worked out for the best in the end. I'm quite happy with the tree's current state, apart from the nebari, but I'm working on that.

My most recent attempt at a trunk chop, done unassisted, involved two little elms I bought in late 2015. When I bought them they were growing together in one pot:

Two little elms as purchased, November 2015

Aside from feeling that they didn't belong together, I also felt they were too tall and straight, so I separated them and chopped both back to stumps.

After the chop, November 2015

Clearly this time I did everything right because they soon sprouted from their chop sites.

I've done very little work on them since then, only removing branches that I knew I'd never use and doing a little wiring where necessary.

This is how they look now:

Larger tree, December 2017

Smaller tree, December 2017

Right now I'm waiting for the leaders to thicken up a bit. Once that happens I'll reduce their height and start developing more branches. Hopefully in a couple of years from now I'll have the beginnings of two nice little trees.

How to Kill a Trident Maple

In October 2007 I bought a small Trident Maple at our club's annual show. I wasn't a member back then, but that was the day I signed up for the club's beginner's course and I attended my first meeting a month later. So you could say attending that show changed my life. It also changed my little tree's life, though certainly not for the better!

Although my Trident Maple was a nice little tree, I immediately set about redesigning it to make it truly mine. It would have been okay if I'd stopped after the first pruning, but worse was still to come for that tree.

One day I was browsing in the bonsai section of a local bookshop when I came across Peter Adams's book "Bonsai with Japanese Maples". I was tempted to buy the book but as I didn't own a Japanese Maple back then, I didn't see the point. (I did eventually buy it several years later.)

However, while looking at the book, I noticed a technique for growing fat trunks quickly. It involved cutting a tree back to a short stump, then letting all the new branches grow long and thick to fatten the trunk, cut them back and repeat... I couldn't resist the temptation to try it and the victim was my little Trident, the only Maple I owned at the time.

Unfortunately as a bonsai newbie I didn't realise that I needed to ensure that I left some buds below the chop site and I made the chop far lower than I should have. Then I waited impatiently for those new branches to grow, but sadly they never did.

The crazy part is that, even months later, I could see that my tree was still alive and with the benefit of hindsight I'm sure that it could have been saved if only a branch or two had been grafted onto it, but instead it was left to die a slow and painful death.

I now have several Japanese Maples, including three which I grew from thickish cuttings a few years ago, and I can't help feeling that this little tree (the ugliest of the three) would be a perfect candidate for that technique.

Japanese Maple grown from cutting.

The trouble is I've never had the courage to try again. I was tempted to try it this spring, but instead I've kept the height of the tree while trying to encourage the low branches to grow and keeping the top growth short.

I'll have to do something more drastic eventually, but it's the middle of summer now, so it's probably not the best time to do it.

To Graft or Not to Graft, that is the Question

I've never been too keen on the idea of grafting bits onto my trees. I like to work with the options they offer me, though sometimes it's a struggle.

A few months ago I was contemplating moving my best trident maple into a bonsai pot in time for this month's show, but my plans were changed when it was suggested that I graft some extra roots to improve on the rather unimpressive nebari. Reluctantly I agreed.

October 2017

I planned to take the tree to a workshop for assistance in early spring but due to unforeseen circumstances the job was never done though the tree was marked with lines where six of my trident maple seedlings should be attached to the trunk.

Trunk marked with blue lines where seedlings should be attached

My next opportunity to get the help I needed was at a workshop at the club show, but I wasn't happy for this major operation to be performed in such a busy environment so I postponed the "surgery" until next month.

Now I'm having second thoughts. For one thing I'm not happy to do root work on one of my best trees so late in the season. For another I'm still not totally convinced that I want to do the root graft at all. To me trees with a perfect spread of roots look unnatural.

A few days ago I brought the tree inside for a quick haircut and while I was at it I had a look at the roots. One thing was glaringly obvious - the soil level was too low. After I'd added soil one side looked better though the root on the other side was barely visible.

Soil level raised - one root is barely visible

Fortunately that problem can be dealt with quite easily by making a slight adjustment to the planting angle next time I repot the tree.

Soil level raised and slant altered

I may still change my mind again, but for now I'm not planning to do any root work this summer. Perhaps the extra soil will encourage more roots to grow naturally, and if I'm not happy with how it looks next spring, the root graft can be done then. But for now I'm hoping to let my tree live with its naturally imperfect nebari.

A Year Spent Watching a Trident Maple Grow

At some stages in a tree's development it's best to do nothing other than leave it to grow. Such was the situation with the Trident Maple I first discussed in my post Building a Trunk in late 2015.

It was unfortunate that I was forced to repot that tree at the time that I cut the trunk back because I'm sure that the heavy root pruning I did back then has slowed its development somewhat. Still it's grown a lot since I picked my new leader - the lower of the two options I discussed in that post. The thin flimsy leader  has thickened substantially and now extends about three feet above the chop site. I also have a branch where there was little more than a bud when that post was written. This is what it looked like after a year of unrestrained growth.

January 2017- before trim and wiring

I won't even think about shortening that leader for at least another year as it's not thick enough yet. Besides I'd like to fatten up the trunk a bit more too.

When I brought it inside today, the photo above was all I had planned but on closer inspection I decided it was time to position the side branch properly while it's still young and flexible. At the same time I shortened the branch because, for now, my main focus is on thickening the leader. I don't want that branch to fatten up too much until I start developing other branches either because I'd hate it to grow out of proportion to the rest of the tree.

Branch pruned and wired. The leader was left intact.

Just when I thought that I was done I realised that I needed to clean away the moss growing up the base of the trunk. In so doing I discovered that the base is actually somewhat thicker than I realised. Rotating the tree I also found that the base looks better from what I thought was the back of the tree, while the rest of the tree doesn't really suffer from a change of front.

New front. The section below the wire was hidden by the moss.

I'll need to change the slant when I repot it because it's now leaning slightly backwards, but that's only a minor issue. I'll also have to remove the root marked with an arrow in the photo below.

View of base from old and new fronts.

As it's already late in the growing season I'm planning to leave dealing with both of those issues until spring when I'll probably move the tree into a bigger pot.

I've been battling with this tree for years now, but at last I feel like it's starting to show some promise. It still has a long way to go though.

My Purple Maple

Just a teaser for an upcoming post.

When I came across a link to an advert for "sky blue maple seeds" on Reddit, I thought it might be fun to turn one of my own trees purple just to show that those trees aren't that rare - with a bit of computer manipulation.

Aside from the colouration and slightly artistic edit, this is what my tree looked like before I pruned it a few days ago. Once I've managed to sort through all my old photos, its life history will be revealed.

Most of them survived

In October 2015 I wrote about a newly acquired Stinkwood tree which was drowning in Maple seedlings.

Weeds and seedlings - October 2015

With a little gentle poking around in the surface soil I was able to extract 25 seedlings, each of which was planted in a small plastic cup with drainage holes.

23 of them survived.

For the last year they've been living largely untouched on the lower shelf of a small stand in a fairly sheltered area - a spot chosen to protect them from the hail which has left some of my better trees looking rather the worse for wear.

Now they've had a chance to grow a bit its time to start putting movement into some of their trunks.

Before starting work I decided to bring them inside for a family photo:

23 seedlings - January 2017

That was when I discovered that, while the front ones had been growing vigorously, some of those at the back were still tiny and were nowhere near ready for me to work on.

Size comparison

Clearly those needed a lighter spot.

I decided to relocate some of the other trees on the stand so that the smaller seedlings could be moved forward without compromising the position of the bigger ones.

After returning the weakest trees to the stand I was left with 15 trees to wire. I've started work but it will probably take a few days to wire them all.

I've been fairly conservative with the movement I put into the biggest tree.

Tallest tree after wiring

I'll try to be more adventurous with some of the others.

Hooked on Propagation

Sometimes I wonder whether my efforts at growing bonsai are just the work of a glorified gardener. It's not that I don't want to create beautiful trees, but sometimes I doubt my ability to do so. The fact that many of the trees I see at my club are far superior to mine doesn't help. But when my desire to propagate more trees gets in the way of styling those I already own, I have to wonder where my priorities really lie.

Patience has never been one of my strengths. I guess that goes a long way to explaining why I've propagated so many trees over the years. What it doesn't explain is why I still feel the need to do so when I've already got far more cuttings and seedlings than I know what to do with.

As my collection has grown I've become a bit more disciplined, and I'm slowly learning to restrict my propagation efforts to a few favourite species, mainly indigenous varieties of Ficus. They aren't usually a problem because for the most part I simply prune as required, plant the cuttings and wait to see what grows. However I'm being held back by an air layer on a Ficus Ingens right now, and it's getting a bit frustrating because I really want to start work on developing the existing tree.

My real problem, however, is Japanese Maples. They're not even a particular favourite of mine - I far prefer the growth habits of the humble Trident Maple. But when I visit a nursery and see what they're charging for very ordinary Japanese Maples, it makes me feel that throwing away my large cuttings would be like throwing money on the compost heap.

So today I find myself facing the same predicament I did last summer (and the one before that) - should I remove those big unwanted branches? It's summer here and the only time I've had success with large Japanese Maple cuttings was in July - the middle of winter - so they're unlikely to root if I cut them now. In previous years I've decided to wait, but come July I never get around to pruning the trees, so how likely is it that next winter will be different?

Right now I've been working on the one tree that didn't offer any decent cuttings and I'm trying to convince myself to go ahead and cut the rest. They'll never make decent bonsai if I don't commit to doing what's best for the trees rather than waiting for the right time to propagate more.

My New Maple Tree

I hope my tone doesn’t offend any beginners, but some people seriously think this is the best way to start bonsai. Some nurseries even sell “Bonsai Kits” which consist of a small bonsai pot, some soil and a few seeds.

Granted it is possible to start bonsai from seed, and I’ve tried it myself, but it takes a lot of time and patience to grow a decent tree that way. And you certainly shouldn’t be planting a seed straight into a bonsai pot because the resulting tree will always remain tiny if it’s given limited space to grow roots.

I don’t often plant seeds anymore and I didn’t plant this one. I found this little seedling growing in a pot alongside one of my trees a few days ago and I couldn’t bear to kill it, so I moved it into a cut down bottle and now I’m waiting to see if it survives.

 In such a small pot it’s not going to grow very quickly. If left to grow unrestricted, it will probably reach about the size of the tree standing to its left here in a year’s time.

The larger tree is one of the 23 seedlings I rescued from another pot a year ago. The time has come for me to make some decisions about their future. I’m hoping to move some of them into bigger pots if I can find the space to put them. I’ll probably wire a little movement into some of the trunks and I’m also contemplating experimenting with fusing a few of them together to create one thicker tree.

That’s the great thing about free material – it gives me the opportunity to do all kinds of weird experiments.

My best maple tree, however, certainly wasn’t grown this way. It was five feet tall when I bought it as nursery stock, and yet it will always be a small bonsai. Large trees need to spend years in the ground before they start their life as bonsai.