Shohin Momiji

raydomz

Shohin
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Posting out of pure excitement and in an effort to keep better track of my trees.
I purchased this tree from Matt Ouwinga of Kaede Bonsai-En and could not be happier. If any of you have dealt with Matt you know how encouraging he is and his knowledge on both maples and Japanese pottery in general is second-to-none. I highly recommend purchasing from him.

This little maple is loaded with character and its rather unusual branch structure is the reason I decided to buy it. Don't worry, as the leaves drop I will post pictures of said structure :)
Anyhow, come spring time this little maple will get a well deserved repot as well as some refinements to the branch placement that will dramatically change the canopy. Once the tree is in a larger pot I also plan to remove all of the moss (which does a great job of keeping it from drying out too quickly) and expose the beautiful spreading nebari. Matt had said this tree was over 40 yrs old and it shows.

Until then, I will simply let it sit on the stand and enjoy the fall colors that are just starting to emerge.

S6Q1apJ.jpg

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Dan W.

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Very nice! I eyeballed this one on his site several times.
 

MACH5

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Very nice! I eyeballed this one on his site several times.

LOL me too Dan! I am sure that many others here did as well. It is a very charming little maple and glad that at least went to a good home :)


Enjoy!
 

raydomz

Shohin
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I'm surprised it hadn't been purchased but I'm glad you guys decided not too, my bench appreciates it :)
 

JudyB

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Great little tree Ray. Glad to see you get a sweet maple like this one. Can't wait to see the structure, and in a new pot. Have you been pot shopping for it yet?
 

raydomz

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Great little tree Ray. Glad to see you get a sweet maple like this one. Can't wait to see the structure, and in a new pot. Have you been pot shopping for it yet?

I did some brief shopping for it at the nat show but had to step away from Matts booth before I spent even more. The pot it is in now is a very nice, well know Japanese pot but its just too small, Matt offered to help find me one come spring time so I may take him up on that. The trident I purchased from him is in a very nice cream rectangle that just might be the ticket..
 

Dan W.

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Have you posted the trident anywhere yet?
 

raydomz

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Dan, I need to get some proper photos of it. I'm holding out for the fall color which is just starting to show it self.
 

raydomz

Shohin
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I sold this tree last spring, but I'm still connected to the person via FB. I'll reach out and see how it's doing.

Prior to my selling it, here's what happened:
The winter after receiving it, we had one of our worst winters in memory. Super deep temps, not a ton of snow in late spring, bad thaw/freeze cycle in early spring. All around terrible conditions for trees. This particular tree should have been better inspected prior to overwintering - I knew the tree had been in the pot many years, and did not take in water very well, but I did not take that seriously enough. I only found out after close inspection the following spring that it was very pot bound and much of the rootball died from the low temps. The entire top of the tree died as a result and I was left with a stump (a beauty of a stump/base though!).

That spring I put the tree in a small colander with "cali-dama" (way better than akadama for our cold MI winters) and it bounced back amazingly well. The new leader grew over 24" that year. When I sold it a couple years later, it was well on it's way to being a great tree again.

The one thing that should be quite apparent at this point, is that the entire top is new. This little tree had such great old/grey bark and the new stuff was green/red. It was a sad day when I had to cut off all of the old, well developed, well barked dead branches on top.

Here are some pictures from 15/16. I have one from 17 somewhere.

Thanks for asking about it - I'm curious to see how it is doing now and will update!
 

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