Literati Maple

Smoke

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In June two months ago while my wife was still able to move around, she told me to go to the end of the the year BBQ for the local club. I did as I would only be gone for a few hours. At the BBQ there was silent raffles, vendor tables and things like that to raise money for the club.
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Smoke

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While looking at the material on the table I spotted this maple in a flat dish. Basicly just a stick in a pot for $10.00.
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This stick close up
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It had a few branches on it and I covered the entire trunk with netting to keep the squirrles away after wireing the trunk and bending for shape. Wired a few branches and put it on the bench for the last 60 days.
Today I took off all the wire since it was already cutting in. I removed this ugly branch that I wired in an effort to keep the branch. I felt it wasnt needed and removed it.
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So now after 60 days I have a framework set and will just keep watch over this little tree. My wife actually liked this one..but she was a sucker for anything maple.
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Nybonsai12

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I'm enjoying these threads Al. Literati is a style that we need more of on the forums.
 

j evans

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Yes, so far a stick in a pot, but a nice stick in a nice pot and you'll make it even better. I too enjoy when people do different styles that I know little about.
 

Arcto

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It's not easy finding good literati material from nursery stock. Maybe that is why we don't see more examples of this. Carry on.
 

Tidal Bonsai

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Pretty Cool! I don't think I have ever seen a literati maple before.
 
D

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any updates on this tree @Bananaman ?

just started looking into maple literati and this is the first thing that came up :)

D
 

Paulpash

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It looks like a stick in a pot to be honest. Why are you wasting time trying to make a good literati out of this species when there's Pines and Junipers to produce a much higher quality tree?
 
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Djtommy

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It looks like a stick in a pot to be honest. Why are you wasting time trying to make a good literati out of this species?
Actually I don’t think it’s impossible, I have seen a trident once which was very elegant and definitely had a Literati feel to it. It was very playful, but the styling also looked nowhere near a conifer literati. That’s probably the key ingredient
 
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D

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Why are you wasting time trying to make a good literati out of this species?

in your view it is not possible to make a 'good' literati out of japanese maples in general?

lately i have been collecting photos of literati trees, and i'm not convinced that something like the shapes in the attached photos, for example, could not be interestingly achieved with, say, an arakawa maple. i'm speculating. would love to hear your thoughts.
 

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Paulpash

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in your view it is not possible to make a 'good' literati out of japanese maples in general?

lately i have been collecting photos of literati trees, and i'm not convinced that something like the shapes in the attached photos, for example, could not be interestingly achieved with, say, an arakawa maple. i'm speculating. would love to hear your thoughts.

A good literati has feminine, often sinuous, movement in a thin trunk which also has the patina of age - ie aged bark. The tree @Bananaman has posted has none of these qualities and trident maples in general are not a good choice for a literati. I'd have selected hawthorn, blackthorn or ume as a deciduous species more suited to this style.
 
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@Paulpash it sounds like you might have meant specimen, not species, but also meant species?

in your post that i quoted above you discounted all maples by saying the 'species' was no good for literati, but you now seem to be using a single 'specimen' (Al's tree) to justify that claim? o_O

i'm actually genuinely interested in learning about maples as literati, which is why i posted here. do you think the entire species (i.e. all maples) is bad for literati?
 

Paulpash

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@Paulpash it sounds like you might have meant specimen, not species, but also meant species?

in your post that i quoted above you discounted all maples by saying the 'species' was no good for literati, but you now seem to be using a single 'specimen' (Al's tree) to justify that claim? o_O

i'm actually genuinely interested in learning about maples as literati, which is why i posted here. do you think the entire species (i.e. all maples) is bad for literati?

I don't think trident maples as a species make high quality literati. Can you find one to make me have a change of heart? I have looked and not found one but I have found some cracking junipers and pines. I also think Al's tree doesn't have anything of interest to make me change my mind. It's like creating a broom out of a pine and expecting it to have the same quality as a Zelkova - it's innate qualities don't lend itself to that style of tree.
 

Potawatomi13

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Why are you wasting time trying to make a good literati out of this species when there's Pines and Junipers to produce a much higher quality tree?
Can you find one to make me have a change of heart?

Such change of personal prejudice comes only with enlightenment some are incapable of:rolleyes:.
 
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