Shohin sugar maple in a Sara Rayner pot. This tree is mostly unstyled besides some pruning of third twigs/branches and some spacers. I can’t seem to not scar my maples so I’ve been working with this spacer idea. It has its obvious limitations but allows a good amount more manipulation than “clip n’ gro”.
I have several small sugar maple saplings I’m working on but this was found in this state and far more ramified than anything else I’ve found. Most were the usual straight whips with long internodes and big leaves. The largest leaves on this one were barely 2 inches. I have no idea if this is a genetic mutation like a witch’s broom but from seed or if it was somehow otherwise stunted.
My goal it to try to keep the same general size and scale but increase the ramification and maybe add a little girth. This tree remained outside in Maine for the winter through a couple weeks of -20F and the buds still appeared viable and none of the twigs had desiccated so I went ahead with a repot. I’ll keep the long leader through the season in hopes of Giving the main trunk a little more thickness and then remove it in favor of the little branch emerging near the bottom of the shoot.
It’s just a start but if it behaves like a dwarf perhaps I’ll have cuttings down the road with promising habits.
I have several small sugar maple saplings I’m working on but this was found in this state and far more ramified than anything else I’ve found. Most were the usual straight whips with long internodes and big leaves. The largest leaves on this one were barely 2 inches. I have no idea if this is a genetic mutation like a witch’s broom but from seed or if it was somehow otherwise stunted.
My goal it to try to keep the same general size and scale but increase the ramification and maybe add a little girth. This tree remained outside in Maine for the winter through a couple weeks of -20F and the buds still appeared viable and none of the twigs had desiccated so I went ahead with a repot. I’ll keep the long leader through the season in hopes of Giving the main trunk a little more thickness and then remove it in favor of the little branch emerging near the bottom of the shoot.
It’s just a start but if it behaves like a dwarf perhaps I’ll have cuttings down the road with promising habits.