This is a great tree Brian. Based a bit from your progression I'm going to start a ROR trident next spring, I have a rock and several trees to pick from.Updated shot of the ROR trident maple. Ino pot. Really happy it’s not dead.
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Recognized the leaves immediately
Here's my one in development. Got some air roots forming..
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#1 I twice linked to a prior post of this same little tree in the same little pot that I posted last fall. As I said, I did not do any defoliation last year and what one sees in that posting in this thread from last fall is the full season of foliage.QUOTE @0soyoung "Obviously, this contradicts the shallow belief that longer petioles necessarily mean longer internodes."
Outdside of the fact that the Bigleaf is one species and the little leaves are another, I don't think that long internodes automatically mean never reducible. But, the amount of reduction varies widely from species to species and some do not reduce to bonsai standards. Depending upon your standards. The small leaves you show are immature and will likely grow to the same relative length of the ordinary un-reduced leaf to un-reduced petiole relationship. I'd like to see them in September. And I'd like to see you reduce the Bigleaf to whatever that would be. I've said before, many times, that Norway does not reduce much more than 50%, which is still not bonsai.




Yes.I missed where you say what the species is of the little guy. Is this Bigleaf the same scale as yours?
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. Likely from a neighbor's landscape tree.