Amur maple sumo stump

davetree

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Here is an Amur maple that I dug yesterday. I planted this tree 4 years ago after pulling out of a pile of dead trees at the local nursery. Two years later I trunk chopped it and left it in the ground to heal. Two years after that the major wounds are healing, the top 6 inches is dead but there are strong branches all around the tree so I am not worried about dieback. Two more years in the training pot and then it may start to look nice. The base is about 8-10 inches wide, the variety is "Flame".
 

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davetree

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Here is a shot of the whole tree.
 

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BONSAI GARAGE

Yamadori
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Nice!!! I just put a thumb sized Flame in the ground last fall. I already chopped it and have one leader now. Looked full of buds so far. Till we had some frost this week. Not sure how it will handle that. Keep us posted on this tree.
 

davetree

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I am interested in opinions on how others would style this tree, thanks.
 

grog

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I am interested in opinions on how others would style this tree, thanks.

I think you would about have to shoot for something broom'ish since it would be a long process to taper from that base into another main trunk section. With that in mind I think I'd cut out as much of the dead central trunk as you can get to, cut off the lowest branch so you don't end up with another scar to heal over, then start picking branches you want to keep and getting some wire on them. Definitely a nice fat trunk to start with!

How're the roots looking underneath there? I've repotted a couple nursery grown Amurs in the last month that've been nightmares to try and sort out.
 

davetree

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I bare-rooted this tree 4 years ago and cut the roots back to stubs then. I could fit this in a big bonsai pot right now if I wanted to - the root mass is only about 5 inches deep, about 18 inches wide. I want it to grow some more fine roots first. There are scars healing nest to the lowest branch, it will come off in due time. The top 6 inches of trunk will be carved in a day or two.
 

davetree

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These grow so fast and there is a thick leader on top - I could get good taper in two years I bet.
 

JasonG

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I think you got a pretty cool trunk here and some good possibilities. If it were mine here is what I would do.
1)eliminate everything you know you won't need(see bad drawing).... thick branches, areas where there are several shoots coming from one area, pick 2 or 1 and get rid of the rest. This will open the tree up a bit for step 2
2) get rid of the dead part of the trunk.
3) re evaluate the tree now that it has just changed quite a bit. Get more pics and repost them so we can see what you have to really work with.

Hope this kinda helps.

Jason
 

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