New Root over rock trident maples

[Shibui]

Mid winter is the time to start digging the trees in my grow beds.
I like to start with the Root over Rock trees because it is like opening Christmas presents - you never know what's inside the wrapping.

This is the row of trees.


Roots and rocks are buried so the soil presses the roots close to the rock. You should be able to make out the top of the foil wrap around each one.

Here's one out of the ground.


Unwrapped -


A bonus this time as roots are great on both sides of the rock. That will give more options to develop the best front later.


Any obviously redundant branches and sub trunks are removed completely but you can see that I like to leave a couple of possible leaders. As they develop next summer I can make a final choice of trunk line.

Here's the next one. This was supposed to be a nice small tree on a small rock. obviously the tree had other ideas so now it will need to be developed as a larger tree on a small rock.


Again, both sides look good.


and another one


A couple of hours digging and pruning yields a nice little cache of potential future ROR tridents.



These will just have the roots covered with soil until I get time to pot them up in spring.

 

[terryb]

I've seen how much you reduce the roots on your standard tridents at repotting. I'm curious if these will get a similar reduction or whether you leave a little extra given a large proportion of the root mass will be above ground?

 

[Shibui]

I haven't had a real close look at the remaining roots but I think I have taken off enough. Most of the roots have been cut back leaving around 1cm of new root from last year. The only reason for reducing further would be to allow for change of angle or depth of the pot but I hope the lower roots are already short enough to fit into a bonsai pot. In general I have cut the roots as close as possible to the bottom of the rock without removing the ones that are holding the rock. That should allow maximum rock/root to show while leaving plenty of finer feeders growing in the pot.
There's no point cutting the roots where they are growing over the rock. The whole point of root over rock is to show good roots growing on the rock. My aim when reducing roots is so they will fit into a bonsai pot and to get thicker roots to ramify into thinner feeder roots. I have found that most roots respond to a cut by growing lots of new roots from the cut ends so if I want root ramification I cut where I want that to happen. This may become clearer when I post some pics of the other tridents and you can actually see the response from last year's cuts.

 

[leatherback]

Any update here? Would love to see MUCH more of these beauties in a row

 

[Shibui]

I started advertising these late November so a few have already gone to new homes and I have a few in the pending section waiting for delivery. All have shot well and have had several trims so far this summer.
My root over rock catalog will give you a better look at the individual root/rock/trunk combinations. The file is too large to upload here but you can access it on Shibui Bonsai website catalogue page

I don't spend enough time posting on the site but while you are there have a look and see what I've been doing bonsai wise downunder.

 

[leatherback]

downunder.

Showing at the WBC in Perth next year? I guess there is a nationwide push to get good trees there?

 

[Shibui]

Should be a great convention but I won't be attending. At 3570km away Perth is almost the same as overseas for us - 37 hours by road or nearly 7 hours by plane.
They also have very strict quarantine to try to keep out all the nasty bugs and diseases that we have on the East side but have not yet reached the West so live trees and soil are prohibited imports into WA. There are quarantine checkpoints at all the border crossings to search for prohibited plant material. Almost all the trees in the exhibition will be from local West Australia residents. Fortunately they have a few very good growers so there should be some great trees, particularly WA natives. To round out the exhibition I believe they have asked for good quality photos for a virtual exhibition alongside the living trees.

 

[leatherback]

There are quarantine checkpoints at all the border crossings to search for prohibited plant material.

Yeah, keep forgetting about your interstate quarantines. I have very much run into trouble on a roadtrip when I was living in Melbourne for a bit 2 yrs ago.... Going to a farmers market to stock up on fruits and veggies before heading north on the stuart highway. To run into a state border an hour later. What a waste!

At 3570km away Perth is almost the same as overseas for us - 37 hours by road or nearly 7 hours by plane.

True. But compare that to 22 hrs on a plane from Europe and all of the sudden you are just around the corner!

 

[Canada Bonsai]

@Shibui how are these doing?

I remember seeing a more in-depth thread (maybe a blog post?) on your trident ROR projects, but can't find it this morning.

Very curious to see how these are doing. Not many ROR projects are document start to finish. Brian's is great of course, love it

 

[Shibui]

These trees are grown for sale so most will have new owners. Occasionally I keep 1 or 2 of the better ones to develop further. I don't think any of the trees shown above made the grade for me to retain.

I'll start another thread to show what little history I have of the ones I have elected to develop further - https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/shibui-root-over-rock.52071/