Bloody-good find

[Giga]

Just happened to be at lowes picking up an angle grinder for better carving and thought I'd pop in the garden section and look what I found. It's a bloodgood and for 50$ I thought it was totally worth it. I don't have any Japanese maples and thought this would be a good larger JM.

The base flares out even more under the soil line but not gonna mess with it for now till spring when I repot it.


The plan is to cut off the big branch on the left(fixing some revers taper there) then tiling the tree to the left and cutting it right at that branch on the right and using that as the new apex. You can see the graft on the top of the coffee cup(Would make a good color for a pot ,no?) and plan on thread grafting a first banch there to the right to help with the transition there. What do you think?


Right now it's sitting behind my benches till this spring when it'll get it's work done.

 

[Jester217300]

I have a mature landscaping bloodgood... probably 40+ years old. It's taller than my ranch house. The graft is completely unnoticeable in either bark texture or scion / root stock swelling. I obviously have no idea if we have the same rootstock but since your graft looks relatively good now there is a good chance it will continue to look good in the future.

Hopefully you already know this... bloodgood is considered to be one of the worst J maple cultivars for bonsai. Like dissectum J maples you can make a decent bonsai of it but the cultivar will be fighting against you the whole time. Many people won't touch them on principal. They have long internodes and larger leaves which don't reduce as far as most people would like.

I think a thread graft at the existing graft union may me a little low unless you want to do a mother / daughter tree. I'd do a thread graft half way between the existing graft and trunk split for a first branch is you want to keep the elegant taper it has and current trunk split. If you want more extreme taper and a sumo maple I'd just chop it in spring and wait for it to bud out.

 

[Giga]

Yes I do know it's not the best, much like red maple but for 50$ I two t be a waste of time. I don't know if I'll ever show my trees so it dosnt have to be the perfect bonsai by the standard standards lol. I'd figure by going for a slightly larger bonsai it might be at least enjoyable to look at. Once I get it into a large training pot but I'll have an ezier time of what to shoot for in style.

 

[Giga]

what would be the best way to handle this guy in terms trunk chopping? I was gonna trunk chop it and repot into a larger clay pot this spring. How do most people go about larger store material?

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

what would be the best way to handle this guy in terms trunk chopping? I was gonna trunk chop it and repot into a larger clay pot this spring. How do most people go about larger store material?

Your graft union is here, so you'll need to decide if you want to keep the bloodgood cultivar, deal with the scar, and develop a larger tree. If this is the case, I'd work the roots hard in the spring to begin a radial nebari, plant in a wide, shallow container, and let it grow without really pruning much next year at all.

 

[Giga]

That's was the plan so thanks, I'll make a training pot out of some cedar boards I have. I plan on making a larger maple out of this so I'll cut it down to size and work the roots well and then just leave it only till next spring and fertalize well

 

[Giga]

Didn't realize I havnt updated this thread but here's where the tree stands right after leaf fall. I thought about doing some pruning but I'm not 100% on future branch placement. I'll be pruning and wiring in early spring. Plus grafts and those lower buds, one will be selected for a larger lower branch

Side one

Side 2

Most the small wounds have completely healed


Bigger one needs a few more years


A fun maple for sure even despite its variety.

 

[Giga]

wired then just unwired, pinched, and growing strong