Eric Group
Masterpiece
At this point it is a pretty short progression. The tree itself was a cutting from a cutting from a cutting... See about 10-15 years ago when I first started Bonsai I bought my first Japanese Maple! Just a little Momiji, green, nothing special. Literally it was a pencil thin whip in a pot that was grown as a cutting by the nursery owner. She had them behind the greenhouse because she wasn't quite ready to sell them yet- they had clearly rooted but most people want them pretty well established before they sell them to people- at a GOOD nursery anyway I suppose.. So, I talked her into selling it to me for like $10 or something. Long story short, that tree has spawned numerous cuttings, layers and new trees! I have given many away to friends and family but still have the original (now a beautiful landscape tree at my rental home) and a few others of it's "babies"- including a couple more I made last growing season...
The one I am detailing here was a small cutting or layer taken... Probably 6-7 years ago. A year or two were spent in a pot getting established, then it was moved to the ground to develop some trunk... Spent a couple years in the ground and about 3-4 years ago was planted into a nursery container. Last summer I noticed the soil had become compacted and the tree was getting pot bound. It was not growing any more after late Spring- like not really at all- so it was time for a repot. While out of season repots can be dangerous, Maples in my area seem to respond well to late summer/ early Fall repots. It is so hot here that time of year that they are pretty much dormant anyway and our season lasts long enough that even with a September repot or something to spur new growth, you will have a couple months for the tree to harden off new growth and grow some new roots before our first freeze. So, mid September I took it out of the nursery pot, jumped all over the rootball, chopped off a comparable amount of growth and stuck it in it's first bonsai container. I went with a large rectangle pot, just to be a trainer for this tree. Much larger than it will wind up in of course, but since I was kind of doing the repot out of season, I didn't want to go TOO hard on the roots...
The tree responded with EXPLOSIVE growth! It reminded me of someone waking up from a long slumber to STREEETTTTCCCCHHHH out...
Not only did he react well, but I never saw any slow down after the repot! I had a small bud starting to pop right at the edge of where I was pruning back a large branch ( it had BEEN waiting for months and never opened until I repotted and chopped the branch off), and it extended immediately after repot... Didn't miss a beat and was a foot and a half long by the time Winter hit... So here are some pics, first prior to repot then after repot. I included a few details hots to show the bud I was talking about and the rootball though you can't see much except that it was growing in pretty much regular old potting soil prior to this repot when I put it in a bonsai soil mix of Turface, pumice and some organics...
Not much to look at right now. I will post some leafless pics in the next post so you can see how UNdeveloped it was.
The one I am detailing here was a small cutting or layer taken... Probably 6-7 years ago. A year or two were spent in a pot getting established, then it was moved to the ground to develop some trunk... Spent a couple years in the ground and about 3-4 years ago was planted into a nursery container. Last summer I noticed the soil had become compacted and the tree was getting pot bound. It was not growing any more after late Spring- like not really at all- so it was time for a repot. While out of season repots can be dangerous, Maples in my area seem to respond well to late summer/ early Fall repots. It is so hot here that time of year that they are pretty much dormant anyway and our season lasts long enough that even with a September repot or something to spur new growth, you will have a couple months for the tree to harden off new growth and grow some new roots before our first freeze. So, mid September I took it out of the nursery pot, jumped all over the rootball, chopped off a comparable amount of growth and stuck it in it's first bonsai container. I went with a large rectangle pot, just to be a trainer for this tree. Much larger than it will wind up in of course, but since I was kind of doing the repot out of season, I didn't want to go TOO hard on the roots...
The tree responded with EXPLOSIVE growth! It reminded me of someone waking up from a long slumber to STREEETTTTCCCCHHHH out...
Not only did he react well, but I never saw any slow down after the repot! I had a small bud starting to pop right at the edge of where I was pruning back a large branch ( it had BEEN waiting for months and never opened until I repotted and chopped the branch off), and it extended immediately after repot... Didn't miss a beat and was a foot and a half long by the time Winter hit... So here are some pics, first prior to repot then after repot. I included a few details hots to show the bud I was talking about and the rootball though you can't see much except that it was growing in pretty much regular old potting soil prior to this repot when I put it in a bonsai soil mix of Turface, pumice and some organics...
Not much to look at right now. I will post some leafless pics in the next post so you can see how UNdeveloped it was.