Nursery stock Acer Rubrum...need help!!

Frozentreehugger

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Wow! thank you guys for all this direction! love it! This is definately a few year project, lol. So far I'm just letting it grow. I did end up wiring a few of the branches for some movement, my biggest concern was the top hitting the overhang on the balcony LOL, so I may need to layer the top part soonish. I suppose if i let it grow, it will naturally get a bend haha.
There is no need to layer the
Tree . Because it’s to tall just shorten it . Pick a branch like the one 1/2 way up that comes out fairly vertical . Cut to that and wire it up as the new leader . You can continue to shorten it . As you develop the tree . If you are space limited . When you cut the leader of a tree . It will just choose a new one help it make that choice . . Cutting the leader will also help create side branching . . This is a natural thing . How trees get short and fat . The wind or harsh conditions kill the leader . Tree starts over . And sooner or latter if it keeps happening the tree grows . Wider no matter what you do it will attempt to reach more light. .
 

leus

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Love this thread, and really useful since I got three nursery palmatums to entertain myself in my vacations. These are actually quite thick but tall. And here’s a question: what can be done in the middle of the summer to it? I was thinking of chopping them savagely (I’m open to suggestions, I want to use them as experiments since they were kind of cheap)
 

Hack Yeah!

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Love this thread, and really useful since I got three nursery palmatums to entertain myself in my vacations. These are actually quite thick but tall. And here’s a question: what can be done in the middle of the summer to it? I was thinking of chopping them savagely (I’m open to suggestions, I want to use them as experiments since they were kind of cheap)
Start a new thread and show us some pics
 

Orion_metalhead

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Here's one thing to consider if you are willing to draw this out a few years. I like to play with maple nursery material as well. When I get a young tree that I know is too lanky for a single bonsai, or that is grafted and needs to be moved to its own roots, I will wire all branches that I can successfully bend and treat each branch as a future air layer a few years down the road. Once a branch gets too thick there isn't much you can do with it if it doesn't already have movement. So best to add movement to anything you can now, while you can, and then find fun pieces to air layer off later. That assumes you enjoy the challenge of air layering, etc. Not for everyone.

Here's a simple example from this fall. I picked up a small acer palmatum cultivar with long, straight growth, and a graft. I just wired up random movement wherever it was possible. No plan really. I'll then let it flush out, remove the wire, and repeat each year for a few years. During each repeat cycle I'll start to think above design for each future layer: remove bar branches, coordinate branch movement, etc. After a few iterations you'll be able to air layer off side branches, the apex, and so on with enough movement to make a few good trees from your original material. And they'll all get there pretty fast because they'll be doing that growth on the larger rootstock of your 6 foot tree.

Small nursery palmatum. Maybe 5 feet tall. Not a lot going on here that looks like a bonsai:
View attachment 472350

After wiring for random movement. See that I couldn't bend the lower and middle trunk, since it was already too stiff. So I just ignored it and won't use in any future air layers.
View attachment 472353

End result of this process after a few years. This is a different layer from this Fall, but is basically air layering off the lower left branch above a few years from now. That is in a 10" wide pond basket for context:
View attachment 472352

Good luck with your project.
Great tip!
 
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