Progressive maple-The ugly one

How ugly is it?

  • So ugly is magnificent

    Votes: 13 50.0%
  • ...................

    Votes: 5 19.2%
  • Worse then my uncle thats twice removed on my father brothers side

    Votes: 2 7.7%
  • REALY UGLY

    Votes: 6 23.1%

  • Total voters
    26

brewmeister83

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:D - it's kind of a hybrid technique I've been doing and once I make sure it's consistent i'll spill my beans

Damn you.

The sooner the better! We need to be scientific about this and verify that it works over the tree's entire range, not just the VA red maples;)
I've got CT, Frary's got MI - now cough it up! Erm... for Science I mean.:D
 

Giga

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Real tree vs my tree, I think it thinks it's a trident. Toes not included
0614160707~2.jpg
 

Soldano666

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Please tell us your secrets. Had a few red maples and got discouraged and put them back in the ground. But if I can get the leaves small i might have something nice. Defoliation diddnt seem to help as it made bigger leaves the. The came back
 

Eric Group

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The same things that reduce leaf size on any Maples wok in Red Maple:
Defoliation is OK, but is done too early they will grow back to normal size before the season ends..

Mostly-
Reducing the size of the pot it is growing in really seems to have an immediate, dramatic effect.
That coupled with pruning to create ramification leads to limited roots supplying a bunch of leaves and that creates smaller leaves!

The "problem" with these guys- you simply cannot reduce the size of the STEMS. not just regarding internode distance, but the diameter of even the smallest twigs is dramatically larger than a JM or Trident! No amount of leaf reduction changes that dramatically and thick stems= poor twig ramification. On top of that, the Red Mapkes simp,y do not ratify as easily as a JM air Trident. Hard cut backs to short nodes leads to twig/ branch death sometimes which sends you right back to the drawing board with branch development. Trying to make a nice, twiggy ramified canopy on these guys like you see on other Mapkes is fitting a square peg in a round hole... Just my observations after a couple years of working with them in all ages from seedlings up to large, old well developed Bonsai and pre-bonsai.
 

Eric Group

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Oh, and your tree is a perfect example of their other negative grate- entire trunk die back! Prune the roots too hard one year? The whole damn tree is dead and it will send suckers up from just above the roots. Poof GONE! Never seen a JM or Trident do it, but Red Maples have done it multiple times to me! Prune it too hard? The famous trunk chop? Typical technique for Maple Bonsai creation. Right? Yeah well these guys sometimes decide that massive damage should be shredded and the tree just dies off from the point of the chop all the way to just above the roots! Yaaayyy! Same thing with branches! Large branch, needs to be shortened? The rest might just die down to the trunk on you! SUPRISE!

All that said.., there are challenges obviously but the fall and Spri leaf colors cabin be beautiful. They grow in all sorts of soils and climates... If you keep them happy they can be decent bonsai, not sure they can ever be great ones!
 

Giga

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The same things that reduce leaf size on any Maples wok in Red Maple:
Defoliation is OK, but is done too early they will grow back to normal size before the season ends..

Mostly-
Reducing the size of the pot it is growing in really seems to have an immediate, dramatic effect.
That coupled with pruning to create ramification leads to limited roots supplying a bunch of leaves and that creates smaller leaves!

The "problem" with these guys- you simply cannot reduce the size of the STEMS. not just regarding internode distance, but the diameter of even the smallest twigs is dramatically larger than a JM or Trident! No amount of leaf reduction changes that dramatically and thick stems= poor twig ramification. On top of that, the Red Maples simply do not ratify as easily as a JM air Trident. Hard cut backs to short nodes leads to twig/ branch death sometimes which sends you right back to the drawing board with branch development. Trying to make a nice, twiggy ramified canopy on these guys like you see on other Mapkes is fitting a square peg in a round hole... Just my observations after a couple years of working with them in all ages from seedlings up to large, old well developed Bonsai and pre-bonsai.

Oh - have you seen the stem on that small leaf? I'm glad to prove this wrong, and this guys is in my growing bed for the last 3 years. I have not had this experience with the 7 red maples I have.

Oh, and your tree is a perfect example of their other negative grate- entire trunk die back! Prune the roots too hard one year? The whole damn tree is dead and it will send suckers up from just above the roots. Poof GONE! Never seen a JM or Trident do it, but Red Maples have done it multiple times to me! Prune it too hard? The famous trunk chop? Typical technique for Maple Bonsai creation. Right? Yeah well these guys sometimes decide that massive damage should be shredded and the tree just dies off from the point of the chop all the way to just above the roots! Yaaayyy! Same thing with branches! Large branch, needs to be shortened? The rest might just die down to the trunk on you! SUPRISE!

All that said.., there are challenges obviously but the fall and Spri leaf colors cabin be beautiful. They grow in all sorts of soils and climates... If you keep them happy they can be decent bonsai, not sure they can ever be great ones!

This is the only one I have had die off and the reason it did was it was a weak tree when I collected it. I have many more red maples I have cut them down to nothing and they come back fine. I actually have never had branches die off on me at all. Maybe it's my climate but I have found there are 2 type of wild red maple and one(this one) works great for bonsai while the other does not. I find there characteristic great and a great species to work with. NO reason to lump it together or treat it like a trident- Or even to expect that. IT'S a red maple and very different and I have learned to love the funny characteristic and develop them into something great-to me anyway.
 

brewmeister83

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Real tree vs my tree, I think it thinks it's a trident. Toes not included
View attachment 108236

How big is that "regular" leaf? It looks massive compared to the leaves on the native red maples we have around here. If those bench boards are 3-4 inches across, then almost all the trees in my back yard have leaves only slightly larger than the small leaf in the pic.
 

brewmeister83

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Maybe it's my climate but I have found there are 2 type of wild red maple and one(this one) works great for bonsai while the other does not.

This is a really interesting observation - I have often found two distinct "types" of red maple in the woods around me as well - the upland type has the larger leaves and could be confused with sugar maple if it weren't for the red petioles and stems, and a growth habit that is so unpredictable and disorderly that the whole tree ends up looking like a witches broom if growing out in the open. While the lowland type, which seems to stay around wetlands and moister soils, tends to have a more compact leaves growing in an ordered branching configuration that I can only describe as "pads" like a freshly pinched juniper bonsai. I don't know if they're genetically distinct subspecies or if it's environmental pressure that causes the differences in growth habit. If it's the former, this suggests a potential for cultivar selection. If it's the latter, then maybe it offers a clue as to how we should approach pot culture to mimic these desirable traits in the plant.
 
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Tieball

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You should go ahead and remove the dead areas, seal them up and get some wood growing over them!
I would cut the dead areas back only slightly. Create some ancient weathered carving.....and use the dead limb opportunity nature has provided for creativity.
 

Giga

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Spring work done, back budding and small leaves going well this year. Couple more cutbacks will be done in a month or two then left alone till I wire in late winter 2018

0508171808.jpg 0508171808a.jpg 0508171808b.jpg
 

Giga

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Lots to still do on this tree. I could have got smaller leaves but the tree is still in development so it has a couple runners on it and I have yet to wire this tree out. All in all I'm pretty happy with this tree.

Back0827171047b_HDR.jpg

Front0827171047_HDR.jpg
 
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