Have Campestre maples gone out of favor?

Mike Corazzi

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I had one that I had to downsize when I was widowed. I miss it. VERY vigorous and easy to grow. :)
 

Arnold_K

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IMHO:
I Loved them, I "hyped" them, and I preferred them ... (to e.g. Acer palmatum, because of easier to obtain e.t.c. ).
But in most sense I was wrong.
Fieldmapels are not that esay (to style) as I thought.
The stiffness of theire growing pattern is not easy to tame.
They are a bit affine to mildew, what is not letal but annoying.
They are very apical-dominant. Promoting the lower branch-sections are hard work .
The bark is easily sheared of, when dewiring is conducted.
You need to wire the green shoots to achive curvated branches to the twigs and branches.-

All in all,
my fifty cent to your thread-title:
easy to grwo and "forgiving" YES,
but other species are more "sexy" to bonsai-enthusiasts.
Acer campestre is not native to Japan and had therefore not been used in "the promised land".
So no master-pieces seen on international stages so far.

(In Europe) This species is a solid part of expositions and should have deserved more appreciation, shouldn 't they?
Maybe in future ...
 

Woocash

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I hope not! I’m planning on making these one of my staples over the next few years. I’ve read that they’re hard to tame, but there’s just so much going for them as well. I can imagine there are more appealing alternatives if they’re non native though.
 

RKatzin

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Not at all! At least not in my garden. I have three, an informal upright, a big clump and a wonky leaner. Repotted this spring and collected a root sucker from each so now I have six. Come to think of it, these are the only maples I have that are not Japanese. Other than a couple of Vine maples and they're akin in the series palmatum.
 

rockm

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IMO, They were a "fad" tree in Europe for a while because they're common, basically. They got were popularized in older bonsai books, but not so much now.
 

BobbyLane

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There is a few on the forum, Walter has posted a few great examples, Peterbone has posted collected ones, Paulpash, TomB. i have a thread on one myself.
Ryan neil did a stream on one a few months ago. theyre still desirable here, they can be slower to ramify but Walter's arent looking too shabby.

Harry harrington has collected a few gnarly ones in recent times, this from his FB page
16602536_10154244985023456_3277040179290070135_o.jpg


@Paulpash
94881766_2617352781925859_6180044183269539840_o.jpg
 
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leatherback

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I think we have just not seen what can be done with them. I have one I found in 2014, 2015? when the city pulled a whole hedgerow out. Still kicking myself for not getting a minivan to take all home with me. I just have one. Out of a 10ft pile. Grmp. That was when I did not realize I would have to cut off every single branch and rebuild. So I went for branches instead of trunks and took a whole bush home instead of a number of good trunks.. Big mistake. Still working on closing cut sites, which for 2 inch cuts is a matter of 2 years. The 4 inch cut is a lot slower!

20190331_R14A1390.jpg

So, in the growing out / wound healing phase the foliage looks pretty good already:
1593335306862.png

As can be seen in the first image: No trouble here getting lower branches to pop. And they seem to develop OK for me. But I am not really in a styling phase. I am just "letting the top grow" to close some larger cuts.

Considering cutting the tallest trunk back to a lower side-branch on the right though. Not sure I like the tallness. :( Thoughts appreciated
 

AlainK

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I have one. not that good, but I like it. Other maple species are easier to work with. A picture from the beginning of May :

acerc01_200503a.jpg

In October 2015 - wow, I didn't realize, I really must repot it now !

acerc01_151021a.jpg

(Hey, Vance, I've posted a tree ;))
 
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