erb.75
Chumono
colin, your comment made me smile
$35 Trunk
- Thread starter ColinFraser
- Start date
music~maker
Shohin
So much for air layers! I had a buddy over at the house who wanted to learn a little about bonsai and maybe help out with a project - I decided making him decapitate a perfectly good tree would give him a pretty good feel for what bonsai is about. We did, at least, start a bunch of cuttings from the top . . .
View attachment 101540
As you can see, I decided to leave a little bit of foliage on each of the forks, to hopefully guard against dieback - I'm not sure yet how much of the trunk I want to use, so I'm keeping my options open. Let the backbudding begin!
This should be fun . . .
View attachment 101542
Wow, that's actually great material. Long term project, but that has the potential to be a very unique tree.
Two things:
1) If you want to guard against dieback, seal those cuts immediately. I've consistently found with maples that sealing the cuts can make an enormous difference. I usually use the clay-type paste for big cuts like that, but anything is better than nothing in this case. I've done a fair number of experiments over the years, and paste very reliably halts die back on maples in many cases.
2) What is your approach for rooting maple cuttings? I've tried numerous times in the past, and never had any luck whatsoever. Curious to hear your thoughts on that.
Nice find. I think that was a steal at $35 for bonsai purposes.
justBonsai
Omono
All my maples are beginning to leaf out, except for my trident. At my local bonsai nursery their tridents didn't leaf out either so I'm guessing its normal?
Giga
Masterpiece
This should be a fun project - though I would have planted it in a Anderson flat to help the nebari out and promote strong growth
Smoke
Ignore-Amus
Did you ever shorten this thing or is it still a giraffe?
music~maker
Shohin
Lol - @ColinFraser , I just realized I was giving you advice on something almost a year too late. For some reason, I missed the date on that part of the thread when it popped up in the queue the other day. =)
And now that I realize that, I see the work you recently did to it as well. Looking forward to seeing how it grows out this season.
I am still curious about those cuttings though. Did they work out?
ColinFraser
Masterpiece
The trunk is now about the height of a 22oz beer bottle.
ColinFraser
Masterpiece
Haha, that's ok. Thanks.
I've had only limited success with palmatum cuttings. Unsurprisingly, none of these took; they were pretty much an afterthought. Those that I've rooted in the past were kept in an aquarium-turned-greenhouse with bottom heat.
music~maker
Shohin
I think either this season or next I need to finally rig up some sort of system for more reliably rooting cuttings that are otherwise a bit fussy on their own. I have a number of species hanging around my yard where I'd be happy to have any additional material that I could root. Acer palmatum, seiju elm, and korean hornbeam in particular. None of those seem to root the easy way.
Maloghurst
Chumono
How’s this doing Colin?
Nanuk
Shohin
I agree, I went through this whole thread thinking recent pictures were coming.
It's been two years, we need an update.
stu929
Shohin
Necro posting but hoping for and update. I picked up a tree with a dead top I would like to try this on.
