Progressive Maple challenge- my first JM that I ever bought

[Eric Group]

Yes, this was the very first Japanese Maple I ever bought! It was about ten years ago or more.. I went to a local nursery and she had a bunch sitting out behind the greenhouse she had made from cuttings, and she said she hadn't put them up for sale yet but was about to because they had rooted... So she sold me one! I had no clue what I was doing at the time... Like many who just got started in bonsai, I had the stick in a pot syndrome and this little tree just added to the malady! What it DID do for me though was got me full on HOOKED ON MAPLES... And as the tree grew I made cuttings, layers... And all sorts of stuff rom it which lead to a whole army of Maples propagating me and my family 's yards... Eventually I learned my trees needed to mature and I basically put everything I had worth keeping in the ground for a couple years and just left them alone. I have since dug up every other tree, but this one became a fixture in my yard at my previous residence- now a rental property I still own.



I have been planning to dig it up for some time- even planted one of it's cuttings in the ground a couple beds over last year to have as a replacement.

Today was the day! Pardon the crappy pics! I did not bring my good camera with me. That is not the best neighborhood and I was worried enough about keeping up with all my power tools without them walking off... Didn't want to risk it with the camera.


Digging... Digging... Digging... I was glad that the root mass was ver shallow... Kind of surprising! It had been in the ground for...



And what I wound up with:


Please tell me what you think!

I do plan to shorten it more obviously! I am lucky enough to be going to a workshop with Kathy Shaner late this month and plan to take it with me... Wait... Is that cheating Smoke? Letting an expert give you advice and help? Am I disqualifying myself from the grand prize?

 

[Vin]

Nice Maple! Looking forward to what you do with it. It must be right on the money 3" or is it bigger?

 

[Eric Group]

Nice Maple! Looking forward to what you do with it. It must be right on the money 3" or is it bigger?

I haven't measured it yet, but it should be over 3 inches... Smoke's rule is 1 inch over the soil right? I was estimating about 5-6 inches at that point. I didn't have much in the frames for scale, but I will take better pics tomorrow! I meant to measure it and take more pictures when I got home, but had to water all my tree, then spent a couple HOURS working on all the cuttings I am trying to make from the top of this guy (hen had to cook for the fam, change diapers, dress the baby... I catch hell from the wife after being gone most the day)!

I cannot STAND letting stuff go to waste and a lot of the little side branches (and BIG the big ones) had a nice wiggle to them, so I started... Probably... 20-30 cuttings ranging from very small to a couple in the 2-3 inch range! They did not have old bark on them yet, so I think I have a shot to get some roots... If I start off with a big ole honking trunk on them, I should get something workable real soon from those little guys... Almost as excited about the cuttings as I am about the Momma tree... Nahhh... Jk.

I generally have had great success with Pearlite in recent years, so I did most of them in pure Pearlite with a little top dressing of some old bonsai mix to hell add weight and hold the Pearlite, the cuttings and moisture in the pots better. I did a few with a mix of a little sphagnum peat moss, old bonsai mix (by old mix I mean mix I was making a couple years ago when it was primarily turface, pine bark and pumice- I am TRYING to switch to something closer to Boone's mix for the BONSAI I have... Developing trees, cuttings, seedlings... Get different stuff depending on where they are in the process and their level of importance to me. Cannot afford to put 50..75?.. 100?? Trees in Akadama, that shit is too expensive!! Dang.. How many trees DO I have now? Prolly should try to count one day? Might be time to open the Ebay store!

 

[fraser67]

Looks like a beauty!! Have fun with that one. You're on diaper duty for a week!! Lol

 

[Eric Group]

Measured it today and took a few pics with the real camera...
Trunk between 4-5 inches, root spread in excess of 7 depending where you measure it


Trunk is pretty muscular and fluted, roots in all sides, one has a big scar where I removed another that was crossing it..



I see a couple options for the new tree-using these branches most likely


whole tree:

 

[Vin]

I think it qualifies

 

[Smoke]

Thats a nice dig.

 

[edprocoat]

Eric, I certainly hope you asked yourself for permission before digging this tree .

Very nice tree BTW, is it a lace leaf maple ? I ask because the trunk is so green and I usually see that on the lace leaf ones.

ed

 

[Cadillactaste]

That is nice material! So...measurements taken in the flare zone is acceptable! That's cool to know. Shoot even with out the flare yours is good. Yours is a beast! Congrats!

 

[Vin]

Eric, obviously the biggest challenge is going to be trunk taper. I'll be watching and learning to see how you're going to deal with it in such a short amount of time. Can't wait to see its progress.

Vin

 

[tmmason10]

Nice piece of stock. Since your I propagation mode, do you plan on airlayering the top of the trunk?

 

[Eric Group]

Nice piece of stock. Since your I propagation mode, do you plan on airlayering the top of the trunk?

I have thought about it... But that would take most of the growing season if not longer... So I am weighing the options... I am also concerned about adding stress to a tree that was just ripped form the ground!

 

[Eric Group]

Eric, I certainly hope you asked yourself for permission before digging this tree .

Very nice tree BTW, is it a lace leaf maple ? I ask because the trunk is so green and I usually see that on the lace leaf ones.

ed

It is actually not a lace leaf... Just a regular old JM by all accounts. I am kind of surprised at the green bark as well honestly. I have a few younger trees that are much smaller, not "Arakawa"... And they already have substantial grey bark developing on the lower trunk- more so than this guy I think... I cannot recall for SURE, but the primary one I my thinking of was a layer off a cutting of this same tree I think... Odd.. That one has been pot grown it's whole life, so maybe the bark matures at a different rate in a pot vs the ground...?

 

[Eric Group]

Eric, obviously the biggest challenge is going to be trunk taper. I'll be watching and learning to see how you're going to deal with it in such a short amount of time. Can't wait to see its progress.

Vin

Well I plan to chop it again- either just above the third branch in front, or at an angle stretching from the second branch across and down to the first... This will help the taper problem. The next time I repot I will probably graft some seedlings on the base to improve the nebari as well, but that will be a year or two at least obviously... All depends on how this one acts... If it is happy, I might get to work it again sooner rather than later.

 

[Eric Group]

Thats a nice dig.

Thanks Smoke! I think there is some potential here! Kept some low branches on it, anticipating it would become a Bonsai one day!

 

[tmmason10]

I wonder if it grew so fast the past few years in the ground that it just didn't have time to bark up.

 

[Eric Group]

I wonder if it grew so fast the past few years in the ground that it just didn't have time to bark up.

This thing did explode with growth a couple years ago... Well.. I guess it was like 5-6 years ago! I had to replace the old clay sewage pipe ( house was built in the 50s) and by buddy did it for me with a back hoe instead of a ditch witch (save hundreds of dollars getting him to do it...), and when I rebuilt the beds where he dug the pipe out, I planted this Maple in the prime spot, right over where the old pipe had run and, well... Decades of old poop slowly being released into the soil, then stirred up when he dug it out, and all the clogged stuff getting mixed in there... Yeah... Those beds did REAL WELL for a couple years after that! It was amazing how fast this guy went from about an inch wide little tree to this hulking monster I dug up.

 

[Vin]

This thing did explode with growth a couple years ago... Well.. I guess it was like 5-6 years ago! I had to replace the old clay sewage pipe ( house was built in the 50s) and by buddy did it for me with a back hoe instead of a ditch witch (save hundreds of dollars getting him to do it...), and when I rebuilt the beds where he dug the pipe out, I planted this Maple in the prime spot, right over where the old pipe had run and, well... Decades of old poop slowly being released into the soil, then stirred up when he dug it out, and all the clogged stuff getting mixed in there... Yeah... Those beds did REAL WELL for a couple years after that! It was amazing how fast this guy went from about an inch wide little tree to this hulking monster I dug up.

I'm going to poop on mine tonight then if it helps that much!

 

[edprocoat]

I'm going to poop on mine tonight then if it helps that much!

Vin I think it was actually Eric's poop that did the trick. Everyone in South Carolina says that not only is Eric full of poop but its damn good poop to boot !



ed

 

[Vin]

Vin I think it was actually Eric's poop that did the trick. Everyone in South Carolina says that not only is Eric full of poop but its damn good poop to boot !



ed

Dagnabbit...