Help / Advise needed from Newbie for Crab apple

JudyB said:

Ah, thanks for the tag @Leo in N E Illinois I had missed the new photo posting.
I would agree that your front is the one with the small styro fleck. You do need to get more movement into those branches, and if you don't want to do it with thicker wire, then you'll have to do it by cutbacks. If you are planning on a repot this spring, then I would not cut any more off of it until it recovers. I would suggest getting it into a better soil, that looks pretty organic, although I don't know maybe your climate is very dry and you need lots of moisture? You'll also want to recut some of your wounds where you cut large parts off, cut them flush to the trunk and then seal them. If you have a concave cutter, that makes it easier as the wound will heal flusher to the trunk. Crabapples are loath to ramify, you must make them do it. @Martin Sweeney gave me a good tutorial on crabapples long ago that I've used to develop mine. I'm attaching the text here.


If you want to totally remove a branch or cut one back hard, it should be done in late fall (after leaf drop) or late winter (before bud swelling) being sure to apply medicated wound sealant. Doing so during or after bud swell can often result in either water sprouts or die-back. You should prune last year's shoots at bud swell.
Crabs are difficult to give exact training advice on because they can behave very differently, not just between varieties, but also from plant to plant and even year to year. I recommend experimenting with different techniques and making very good observations and taking good notes.
If you remove the flowers, shoot growth is usually very strong. (If new growth is not strong, only perform light maintenance.) Keep watering and fertilizing on the lighter side during the spring flush if flowers are removed. On extremely strong or early shoots, tip the new shoot once 2 or 3 nodes have formed to shorten the internodes. To induce or strengthen backbudding, once a shoot has reached 1", cut it back to just 1 leaf. Any other shoots should be tipped when they are at least 1" long. There are 2 caveats to soft pruning crabs. 1) DO NOT soft prune shoots once they are over 2" long. Otherwise you run the risk of getting a branch that does not flower. 2) DO NOT cut too many (say more than 1/3) of the new shoots in one sitting, but spread it out over 2 or 3 weeks. (I did that one year. Because I removed flowers and didn't control the water and fert., the plant rocketted away. I trimmed the new shoots all at once, and the plant collapsed/went into shock. Gladly it survived, but I set it back several years.)
New shoots can be wired in early summer when they are semi-hard. I cut new shoots back (where needed) in late summer here, but that might be something you need to leave until spring. The trick to creating convincing branches on a crab (as with most bonsai) is to grow them very slowly, maybe 1" per year.

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Martin Sweeney said:

JudyB,

Are you sure that was me? I certainly don't remember it, but I am getting old!

Regards,
Martin

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JudyB said:

Ah, thanks for the tag @Leo in N E Illinois I had missed the new photo posting.
I would agree that your front is the one with the small styro fleck. You do need to get more movement into those branches, and if you don't want to do it with thicker wire, then you'll have to do it by cutbacks. If you are planning on a repot this spring, then I would not cut any more off of it until it recovers. I would suggest getting it into a better soil, that looks pretty organic, although I don't know maybe your climate is very dry and you need lots of moisture? You'll also want to recut some of your wounds where you cut large parts off, cut them flush to the trunk and then seal them. If you have a concave cutter, that makes it easier as the wound will heal flusher to the trunk. Crabapples are loath to ramify, you must make them do it. @Martin Sweeney gave me a good tutorial on crabapples long ago that I've used to develop mine. I'm attaching the text here.


If you want to totally remove a branch or cut one back hard, it should be done in late fall (after leaf drop) or late winter (before bud swelling) being sure to apply medicated wound sealant. Doing so during or after bud swell can often result in either water sprouts or die-back. You should prune last year's shoots at bud swell.
Crabs are difficult to give exact training advice on because they can behave very differently, not just between varieties, but also from plant to plant and even year to year. I recommend experimenting with different techniques and making very good observations and taking good notes.
If you remove the flowers, shoot growth is usually very strong. (If new growth is not strong, only perform light maintenance.) Keep watering and fertilizing on the lighter side during the spring flush if flowers are removed. On extremely strong or early shoots, tip the new shoot once 2 or 3 nodes have formed to shorten the internodes. To induce or strengthen backbudding, once a shoot has reached 1", cut it back to just 1 leaf. Any other shoots should be tipped when they are at least 1" long. There are 2 caveats to soft pruning crabs. 1) DO NOT soft prune shoots once they are over 2" long. Otherwise you run the risk of getting a branch that does not flower. 2) DO NOT cut too many (say more than 1/3) of the new shoots in one sitting, but spread it out over 2 or 3 weeks. (I did that one year. Because I removed flowers and didn't control the water and fert., the plant rocketted away. I trimmed the new shoots all at once, and the plant collapsed/went into shock. Gladly it survived, but I set it back several years.)
New shoots can be wired in early summer when they are semi-hard. I cut new shoots back (where needed) in late summer here, but that might be something you need to leave until spring. The trick to creating convincing branches on a crab (as with most bonsai) is to grow them very slowly, maybe 1" per year.

Click to expand...

JudyB said:

Ah, thanks for the tag @Leo in N E Illinois I had missed the new photo posting.
I would agree that your front is the one with the small styro fleck. You do need to get more movement into those branches, and if you don't want to do it with thicker wire, then you'll have to do it by cutbacks. If you are planning on a repot this spring, then I would not cut any more off of it until it recovers. I would suggest getting it into a better soil, that looks pretty organic, although I don't know maybe your climate is very dry and you need lots of moisture? You'll also want to recut some of your wounds where you cut large parts off, cut them flush to the trunk and then seal them. If you have a concave cutter, that makes it easier as the wound will heal flusher to the trunk. Crabapples are loath to ramify, you must make them do it. @Martin Sweeney gave me a good tutorial on crabapples long ago that I've used to develop mine. I'm attaching the text here.


If you want to totally remove a branch or cut one back hard, it should be done in late fall (after leaf drop) or late winter (before bud swelling) being sure to apply medicated wound sealant. Doing so during or after bud swell can often result in either water sprouts or die-back. You should prune last year's shoots at bud swell.
Crabs are difficult to give exact training advice on because they can behave very differently, not just between varieties, but also from plant to plant and even year to year. I recommend experimenting with different techniques and making very good observations and taking good notes.
If you remove the flowers, shoot growth is usually very strong. (If new growth is not strong, only perform light maintenance.) Keep watering and fertilizing on the lighter side during the spring flush if flowers are removed. On extremely strong or early shoots, tip the new shoot once 2 or 3 nodes have formed to shorten the internodes. To induce or strengthen backbudding, once a shoot has reached 1", cut it back to just 1 leaf. Any other shoots should be tipped when they are at least 1" long. There are 2 caveats to soft pruning crabs. 1) DO NOT soft prune shoots once they are over 2" long. Otherwise you run the risk of getting a branch that does not flower. 2) DO NOT cut too many (say more than 1/3) of the new shoots in one sitting, but spread it out over 2 or 3 weeks. (I did that one year. Because I removed flowers and didn't control the water and fert., the plant rocketted away. I trimmed the new shoots all at once, and the plant collapsed/went into shock. Gladly it survived, but I set it back several years.)
New shoots can be wired in early summer when they are semi-hard. I cut new shoots back (where needed) in late summer here, but that might be something you need to leave until spring. The trick to creating convincing branches on a crab (as with most bonsai) is to grow them very slowly, maybe 1" per year.

Click to expand...

JudyB said:

I like this side as well, fortunately it's the opposite of the other "good" side, so you can develop both. I do that all the time if I have two good sides. The issue mostly with both sides is the large chop site up top, that needs recut and cleaned up to heal.

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JudyB said:

I like this side as well, fortunately it's the opposite of the other "good" side, so you can develop both. I do that all the time if I have two good sides. The issue mostly with both sides is the large chop site up top, that needs recut and cleaned up to heal.

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Carol 83 said:

I have a couple little crabs hanging out in the garage, that I got from evergreengardenworks last spring. I had no clue what I could/should do with them. This is great information.

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Japonicus said:

Me too I got a Prairie Fire from Brent last year. Thread watched. Thanks Judy.

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Orion_metalhead said:

Really like this tree. I would use this as the front, get rid of the top with the inverse taper, wire the blue branches a little lower, and wait and see what new leader grows from the top. I think the tree is a little top heavy right now with all the branches at the top. It doesnt look like it's vigor is going tk be balanced come spring.

I think the lack of significant cuts on this side makes for a nicer more natural looking trunk than the side where youll need to wait for all the cuts to heal. At this angle, you can potentially work on the other fronts, which I admit are more interesting long term, while not having large showing wounds on the trunk.

Maybe others could give me their thoughts? I'm no expert. Just giving my opinion.

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