A Seiryu Project

[thumblessprimate1]

I've have had a Bloodgood and a Seiryu for years among other maples, and now I decided that I'll grow Seiryu foliage on the Bloodgood's trunk.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

I did the grafts back on June 11 of this year. I defoliated all of the foliage on the Bloodgood and that of the Seiryu except for leaves on the branches of the graft that I wanted to grow well.

 

[JoeR]

Very interested in how this goes. I have wanted to graft a very slow cultivar, like kotohime, on a faster growing cultivars trunk, like standard, and see if it takes. That way I get a huge trunk on a dwarf cultivar in much less time! The graft unions would probably be hideous and hidden on the back or something.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

After a few weeks of vacation and returning home, I found that the Bloodgood trunk had thickened a bit and calloused partially over the grafts. The thickening resulted in the tissue growing around the push pins I used to hold the grafts in place, so I considered removing the pins. See the red push pin? The wound has calloused over the graft at where the pin is not.

I removed the red pin to uncover that it's completely calloused over in that part.

Different story with the portion under blue push pin and the other grafts on the trunk.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

Are the tissue growing over the grafts sufficient to keep the grafts in place? Those who've walked this path would know, but for me, I'll have to wait and see. I've sealed the grafts where the push pins once were. May see success or failure come Spring of next year.

 

[0soyoung]

Interesting project, Thumbless!

In the end, I suppose, you remove all bloodgood branches, but won't you be busy rubbing bloodgood buds off the trunk(s) every spring?

 

[thumblessprimate1]

Thanks, Oso. I'll eventually remove all the Bloodgood branches, and I will be removing their buds every year. Sounds tedious, but I imagine it'd be the simlar work that a maple without grafts would require. I don't think it'll be too much work.

 

[Eric Group]

Do you plan to air layer or ground layer the Bloodgood trunk to eliminate that ugly graft at the bottom?

Very interesting project for sure!

 

[thumblessprimate1]

Certainly, Eric. I plan to ground layer it a few years down the road.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

I think it's pretty clear that this one is already grafted. If you look carefully, you can see that the part exiting has grown larger than the part entering the host. It's probably safe to make the cut from the donor. What do you think? All my other grafts on this tree haven't followed in the same manner yet. For sure they need another year.

 

[Deleted member 21616]

@thumblessprimate1 any updates?

 

[thumblessprimate1]

This one died. I think it caught a disease.
? I may do another similar thing later .

 

[Deleted member 21616]

sorry to hear that

was curious about the maintenance aspect -- removing buds, and being restricted to the grafted branches for design considerations

been reading about the idea of using plain old (low-cost) semi-developed palmatum trunks, and replacing all branches with grafted branches from cultivars that are harder/slower to grow

 

[thumblessprimate1]

Peter Tea and then another apprentice has post on a maple worked on at Aichi en where they replace the branches/foliage.
https://johnmiltonbonsai.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/grafted-yama-momiji/

I haven't been looking for updates. Might look there to see if you find what you need.

 

[Deleted member 21616]

This one?

https://peterteabonsai.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/rebuilding-a-japanese-maple/

Thank you!!!
Derek