Bad-for-Bonsai Japanese Maples?

DrTolhur

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I'm thinking I'm going to only buy Japanese maples from here on our for my bonsai collection. They look great, are suited to my climate, and there's all kinds of varieties of them. My question for y'all is whether or not all Japanese maples are suitable for bonsai. I'm sure there are some that are better than others, but are there any that would be recommended to not use for bonsai? I'd like to get several different varieties to create contrasting colours on my bonsai stand.

One caveat: I'm not considering any lace-leaf or weeping varieties, only full-leafed (no idea what that'd be called) and upright.

I was looking at mrmaple.com and wilsonbrosgardens.com. They've got a ton of options, and many look awesome. It makes me sad that there are a lot of Japanese maples in yards around here, but they're all the typical red variety. It'd be awesome to see some variegated or yellow or, heck, even green ones.
 

0soyoung

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Generic 'green' and/or 'red' that are used as rootstock are great for bonsai --> buy any a.p. on end of seasons sale, layer the top off and have fun with that, the root stock can become great bonsai. Likewise any acer shirasawanum is good. Leaf size reduces in bonsai cultivation, with the size of the tree, and/or with defoliation.

Otherwise, look for varieties with 'hime'/'pygmy' in their name. These have small leaves, as a general rule. Some varieties have inherently short internodes, such as "Shishigashira", but you will actually have to look at stems to know.

Variegation tends to not be attractive as bonsai, but there are many interesting ones. If you love Japanese maples, sometimes you just give conventional wisdom the finger and go for it. 'Butterfly', 'Higasayama', and 'Ryugu' are interesting and are robust small, variegated leaf a.p.

'Ryusen' is a popular weeping variety. And 'Seiryu' is a fabulous small laceleaf variety that is suitable, IMHO.
 

leatherback

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Many cultivars are propagated by grafting onto seedlings. These will have to be layered off the rootstock at some point. It might be worth your effort to look for cutting-propagated.

The bloodgold cultivar has fairly coarse growth habit. You might want to avoid that initially.
 

Rivian

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I'm thinking I'm going to only buy Japanese maples from here on our for my bonsai collection. They look great, are suited to my climate, and there's all kinds of varieties of them. My question for y'all is whether or not all Japanese maples are suitable for bonsai. I'm sure there are some that are better than others, but are there any that would be recommended to not use for bonsai? I'd like to get several different varieties to create contrasting colours on my bonsai stand.

One caveat: I'm not considering any lace-leaf or weeping varieties, only full-leafed (no idea what that'd be called) and upright.

I was looking at mrmaple.com and wilsonbrosgardens.com. They've got a ton of options, and many look awesome. It makes me sad that there are a lot of Japanese maples in yards around here, but they're all the typical red variety. It'd be awesome to see some variegated or yellow or, heck, even green ones.
I have a few. But that may change. Youre not thinking about disease. Maybe its not a problem in your area but here it is.
Bi-hoo afected
Arakawa affected
Atropurpureum affected
Dissectum Garnet (weeping red laceleaf) unaffected
Beni Chidori cant say yet
Shishigashira cant say yet
Seigen cant say yet
Katsura affected
Murasaki Kiyohime affected
Beni Tsukasa cant say yet
Japanese Sunrise cant say yet
Deshojo almost unaffected
Sango Kaku affected
Seedling affected
Orange Dream affected

This is only from 1,5 years of experience so take it for what its worth. Just get ready for suffering and poison spraying :(
 

Mikecheck123

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The JD Vertrees text on Japanese maples specifically indicates for about 1,000 different cultivars whether it is used for bonsai or not.

The ones that are unsuitable outnumber the ones that are suitable.
 

Shibui

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Japanese maples make really great bonsai if cared for really well.
In the wrong hands they make really bad bonsai.
I have found that pruning is the critical factor. JM tend to produce bunches of new shoots after pruning. If those are allowed to remain for any length of time the area swells to produce reverse taper. This can happen at the ends of branches or further back on the trunk.
Some of my JM produce new shoots on the old trunks. In summer when the trees have leaves you can easily miss these shoots growing in the centre of a tree hidden by leaves. By fall when the leaves drop the damage has often been done. I now check inside all better developed JM bonsai every few weeks through spring and summer and rub off unwanted excess shoots while they are still small and have not caused problems yet.

These factors do not become evident in the first few years of development but will happen sooner or later. Would be JM bonsai growers are urged to be vigilant.

Trident maple does not have these problems to the same extent so is a much better beginner tree. If problems do arise you can confidently cut off and regrow easily with trident maple.

The ones that are unsuitable outnumber the ones that are suitable
The ones that are listed as suitable for bonsai appear to all be dwarf varieties. That list was compiled by someone who knows very little about growing bonsai IMHO
I have seen some really great bonsai using some of the dwarf varieties but I have been very frustrated with those varieties. Dwarf types do have small leaves but grow much slower than standard types so progress to create bonsai is very slow. Even regrowing one after hard pruning is so slow. I have stopped trying to develop bonsai from these dwarf types. Faster growing standard type are much more rewarding to work with.
 

Mikecheck123

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Faster growing standard type are much more rewarding to work with.
My experience has been the opposite. I'm convinced that Sango kaku (coral bark) is the toughest and fastest growing cultivar in existence. But it's internodes and straight growth are totally annoying. It's hard to find (or make) a good one.

Sharp's pygmy has pretty fast growth for a dwarf.
 

leatherback

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If you have all these varieties and all these have been infected with some disease you need to verify your care regimen. In 10 years with maples in my garden I do not think I have had a single one infected with anything requiring treatment, more than an occasional shriveled leave or the occasional aphids, which I get on all my trees every once in a while. (Garlic powder added to the substrate in early spring works wonders. I will add by Thursday, as weather is expected to really warm up next week). I had one trunk die-back on me and the deadwood attracted a borer. But the living parts were fine.
 

ConorDash

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Hopefully this is not too off topic as it is still on the theme of the thread but ..

(Garlic powder added to the substrate in early spring works wonders. )
This is interesting... whats the info behind the garlic powder?

And for OP, honestly, if you see a tree which you like, which interests you in some way for whatever reason, go for it. Bonsai should be more about the feel you get from the tree, your interest and motivation to work it and develop it. As long as it looks good to you, who cares what others think. I can understand wanting a species more suited but its all good experience, right?
I love a twisted hazelnut tree, Corylus Avellana "Contorta", most people don't and I get told against it on this forum but screw them, I like the trees.
 

leatherback

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This is interesting... whats the info behind the garlic powder?
 

leatherback

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Then what is your care regimen against fungi?
All my trees get a spring spray of sulfide, against mildew on roses. And somewhere in summer, when it gets mucky I might do a second. But mostly.. Well ventilated position in the garden and no watering the foliage after nightfall.
 

penumbra

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I'm thinking I'm going to only buy Japanese maples from here on our for my bonsai collection. They look great, are suited to my climate, and there's all kinds of varieties of them. My question for y'all is whether or not all Japanese maples are suitable for bonsai. I'm sure there are some that are better than others, but are there any that would be recommended to not use for bonsai? I'd like to get several different varieties to create contrasting colours on my bonsai stand.

One caveat: I'm not considering any lace-leaf or weeping varieties, only full-leafed (no idea what that'd be called) and upright.

I was looking at mrmaple.com and wilsonbrosgardens.com. They've got a ton of options, and many look awesome. It makes me sad that there are a lot of Japanese maples in yards around here, but they're all the typical red variety. It'd be awesome to see some variegated or yellow or, heck, even green ones.
Consider that you are a JM collector and a few of the plants in your collection are suitable for bonsai while many are not. This describes my JM collection and I find the acceptance very liberating.
There are a lot of excellent points here and my take generally is that I would give up on the idea of having a JM only bonsai collection but collect all the JM you like.
There are an awful lot of plants that make nicer bonsai with much less work and a lot fewer problems.
 

DrTolhur

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Trying to parse all the responses into direct answers to my question, here's what I've got:
- Variegated are generally not considered good for bonsai. (This is purely cosmetic, and I like 'em, so no big deal there.)
- Dwarf varieties may require more patience for bonsai development (but perhaps the jury's still out on that).

Did I miss any? I saw some references to good bonsai varieties, but none specifically bad.

I get that, as an art form, bonsai is highly personal and one should do what they like/want, but I'm looking for more concrete information rather than advice. There are specific growth characteristics that allow a tree to respond well as bonsai (reducible leaves, reducible internodes, responds well to frequent pruning, back-budding, suitable for planting in a container, etc.), and I'm curious if all Japanese maples fit these reasonably well. I kind of expect they would being as closely related as I'm sure they all are, but all of my purchases have to be online, which means sight unseen. There's nowhere around here that sells the kind of variety I'm looking for (really just basic red), and I wouldn't have anything to do with any that aren't suitable for bonsai.
 

Shibui

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Bloodgood was mentioned as one to avoid and I agree though I see lots of beginners order these. My experience is large leaves and long internodes make it difficult to get good ramification. Bloodgood shoots also seem to be thicker than many others so I have not been able to get nice fine twigs with that variety.
I have found variegated cultivars are much more prone to burnt leaves. Even in the garden here the few we have all look very ragged by the end of summer.
Has grafting been mentioned yet? Many commercial propagators graft to grow named varieties. Some grafts are very good and do not on the trunk but many are side wedge grafted and the graft site is prominent for many years. Some grafts grow at different rates so reverse taper can become a problem later. Most bonsai growers will recommend trees propagated by cuttings or layers.
If you get a grafted trees and the graft union is poor you can always layer the top off.
Some varieties of JM seem to resist layering and may not grow very well without the stronger roots of a rootstock.

Small leaves, fine twigs and short internodes are some characteristics that should make good bonsai. Pretty sure that most JM cvs will respond to pruning.
Many of the dwarf types need more thinning out than pruning as they naturally produce lots of shoots close together instead of longer growth.

All of my best JM bonsai are grown from seedlings as standard garden type JM. Names are not always best.
 

leatherback

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Trying to parse all the responses into direct answers to my question, here's what I've got:
- Variegated are generally not considered good for bonsai. (This is purely cosmetic, and I like 'em, so no big deal there.)
- Dwarf varieties may require more patience for bonsai development (but perhaps the jury's still out on that).

Did I miss any? I saw some references to good bonsai varieties, but none specifically bad.
Well.. Grafted and bloodgold?

Many cultivars are propagated by grafting onto seedlings. These will have to be layered off the rootstock at some point. It might be worth your effort to look for cutting-propagated.

The bloodgold cultivar has fairly coarse growth habit. You might want to avoid that initially.
 

Mikecheck123

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A good write up on Japanese Maples.


That site also has a little paragraph about juvenile foliage that I'm constantly sharing with people who think their cultivar "reverted" into a mountain maple. (What's funny about it is that it has a global replace error in it where someone replaced the month of May with June.)

Many Japanese maples exhibit juvenile and mature foliage. Juvenile leaves (or reversions) occur when cultivars are pruned hard, grown very vigorously, or after rooted as cuttings. Juvenile leaves are larger, usually green, and do not show many of the characteristics of the mature foliage so desired in the cultivar. What this means is that our cutting grown plants June not exhibit the variegations or the leaf shape or sizes described below of the mature foliage. This phenomenon is most pronounced in variegated and dwarf cultivars. The mature foliage usually appears after about 2 years if plants are not allowed to grow vigorously. Once the plants are dependably producing mature leaves, they will keep their variegations or dwarf configuration unless they are pruned hard, which will induce juvenile foliage again. But this is only a temporary condition and they will again produce mature foliage after a year or two.
 
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