My first Maple in training

[Kalimasah]

Hey everybody,

My first post here at bonsainut, thought id show you my maple tree in training

I found the tree in the woods aprox. 2-2,5 years ago for the purpose to make it into a bonsai. I think it is about 5-6 years old in total.
I had never started on my own bonsai before that, i have only had 2 Chinese elms, but i just had to make my own maple bonsai. Maple is my absolute favorite tree. Just cant get enough.

Well, so i found the tree, but since it was my first attempt i almost killed it right then and there, almost all the roots were removed, i cant remember the reason, but only two long 1cm thick roots were left. So i decided to just stick it in the ground and wait it out, untill it had recovered.

And now it has been a little over 2 years and i finally took the decicion to put it into a training pot(Think thats what i should call it?) so that it can start rooting in there and start to take shape.

It is my first "homemade " bonsai, so im just taking it slow, letting it settle. And im planning on to put it into a real bonsai pot in prob. 2-3 years time. We'll see how it goes.
So i thought id just show you some pictures of it, feel free to comment both positive and negitive i dont mind. Im still learning so any advice would be great

 

[Nybonsai12]

Welcome! Be sure to update your profile with your location, it helps with determining what advice to give.

 

[Kalimasah]

Have two more pictures. Only five in one post



Pic1: I think i will make this the front
Pic 2: Aprox. how i will shape it, im going for the natural round crown
Pic 3: Or this will be the front
Pic 4: View of the trunk
Pic 5: From the left
Pic 6: To show the size compared to a lighter
Pic 7: A nice spot in the shade, where it has trived very good!

Im sorry for the many spelling mistakes, im from europe so english is not my native language

 

[Kalimasah]

Alright Nybonsai12, ill do that right away. And thank you!

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I like it. The leaves are a bit big , but you are targeting a larger design that should fit well. The more growth and leaves you can keep on for now, the faster it will start to mature. But there is an imbalance in that the tallest section is not as thick as the branch below. At some point you will need to chop back the tallest skinny section to the first bud and let the thicker branch be the new trunk.. But no rush, maybe next spring.

 

[Beetleman72]

Welcome to the forum. A couple observations I have: there are only a couple visible roots that I can see and one of them is very large. It will be difficult to have evenly sized roots all the way around with such a large root already. You may eventually want to cut that one way back and let it shoot finer roots out while you develop your nebari the rest of the way around. Also the top left branch is very thick. Looks like its as thick or almost as thick as the trunk. If it were mine id chop that branch off completely and train a new one a a little lower so its not so much of a Y shape.

 

[Eric Group]

Do you know what type of Maple this is? The leaves are huge!

 

[Kalimasah]

Mrfancypants and Beetleman72, thanks for the advice. I actually cut the thinner branch down, so theres more balance in the tree. But its just too bad, i cut the thickest one too short a while ago. Too bad, but their about the same height now

Eric group, i actually dont know, its a normal european maple meant for a bush, but im not sure. But yeah their pretty big actually!