MACH5
Imperial Masterpiece
Back in April of this year, I purchased this Japanese maple clump from Suthin at the MABS convention in Connecticut. For sale at a reasonable price, I took it home to play around with. I bought it barely with any leaves out, but, by the time the weekend event ended, it was fully covered. I wanted to repot it since it was awfully rootbound but now that would have to wait. The tree stood about 16" from soil level at the time of purchase.
Timing was not ideal, but I decided to go ahead anyway and chop it right in half across their entire thing since I felt it had gotten way too tall. It was later slip potted into a slightly larger container. A couple of trunks were also cut off completely at this time.
During the year it grew fairly well considering it was rootbound and the chop was not done at the ideal time.
Cut back to a rough skeleton. Next spring the stumps will be reduced and it will be bare rooted and planted in a shallow container as the process of building a well ramified canopy and turning this piece of rough stock into a bonsai begins.
Here is a sketch of what the clump could look like in hopefully 6 to 8 years from now.
Timing was not ideal, but I decided to go ahead anyway and chop it right in half across their entire thing since I felt it had gotten way too tall. It was later slip potted into a slightly larger container. A couple of trunks were also cut off completely at this time.
During the year it grew fairly well considering it was rootbound and the chop was not done at the ideal time.
Cut back to a rough skeleton. Next spring the stumps will be reduced and it will be bare rooted and planted in a shallow container as the process of building a well ramified canopy and turning this piece of rough stock into a bonsai begins.
Here is a sketch of what the clump could look like in hopefully 6 to 8 years from now.