Trident and Japanese maples airlayering?

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I am very new to bonsai. I went to a nursery and got some trees before really thinking it over. These trees are tall 3 to 4 feet tall. I was thinking f trunk chopping them but Leo thinking of air layering. All will wait till April or May of 2017. But would like ideas. Thanks
 

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Soldano666

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Nice trews. welcome. Do all the research you can find on these species until next spring. There tons of information here on the forum then go hard when. The season right. Personally I'd make a bunch of airlayers next year to give me some Back up material. For down the road. All depend on your expectations and patience. Oh and get more trees...
 

Bonsai Nut

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First thing to look at is the base of the tree and the surface roots - they are the hardest things to fix. Then look at the trunk and ask yourself whether the trunk has the line and the taper that both fits your design, and makes your bonsai look convincingly like an old tree in nature.

In the case of many nursery Japanese Maples, they are grafted. This can often lead to ugly graft scars or bulges that would not be in issue in a landscape plant, but are huge problems with a bonsai. If you have a bad graft, the only real solution is to air-layer above the graft... so that leads to one direction on your development path.

If you don't have a bad graft or graft scars, the nebari (or point where the tree meets the soil) will be your next challenge. Is there a nice flare at the soil, with strong surface roots that look like gnarled old fingers grasping the soil (like you would see in a 500 year-old maple?). Or does the trunk shoot straight down into the pot, with nary a surface root to be seen, and no trunk flare? (extra points for using the word "nary" in a sentence) In this case, you need to move your trees, as soon as practical (given season, etc) into a grow flat. You want to eliminate as many downward growing roots as possible, while maintaining and encouraging radial growing roots. You also want to remove soil so that the trunk is exposed until you see that first row of strong surface roots. In many case with nursery trees that could be 6" or more under the soil line.

Once you take care of both above, you will need to deal with the trunk. But don't go crazy and start chopping before you have a design in your mind about what kind of bonsai you are creating. And make sure that before you chop the trunk, the tree (in its new grow flat) is EXPLOSIVE with health and vigor. You want to reduce the trunk when the tree is at its strongest, so that it will backbud like crazy and throw new, strong growth.

Then you just have to worry about styling :)
 
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Thank you so much for the input. One of them have a couple surface roots. The other ones do not. So how would I make surface roots show. I want many nary surface roots. I have been reading as much as I can. Some things are just way over my head being so new to bonsai. 2 months. This seems like a great place to learn and hoping that I can join a club in the area so maybe get some help out of them. Thanks again. I need to develop nebari's first before I think about air layering. I can not see any where on any of these trees have been grafted everything seems to not been touched. But I am by no means an expert.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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In this set of photos, the first maple with red leaves does not look grafted. This is possible, in the USA the JMs 'Bloodgood" and "Emporer I" are available from tissue culture (which like a cutting, would be true to type and have no graft scar).

Second photo I can not tell, need a better photo of its trunk.

Third and fourth tree do not look grafted.

Fifth photo I believe is the same tree as the first.

I think with all of them, if they were mine, For 2017 the only thing I would do is repot them to growing trays or boxes. The trays or boxes should hold the same amount or more potting media than the pots they are in. I would recommend the new growing tray should be less than 5 inches deep, 4 or 3 inches would be ideal. I don't remember where you live, so I can not give you a date, but in spring, when new buds are just about to break open and leaves are about to pop out is a good time to repot. At the time of repotting you can prune downward roots, prune off roots that are too thick, you can create a nice flat radial root system. Don't prune the top of the plant. Since you are repotting as the new buds are about to sprout, the tree will open only the amount of buds it can support. If you prune off more of the top than needed to "balance" the roots and leaves, you will not get the best root growth. To get the vigorous roots you need, you want maximum amount of foliage. So keep the top, it will help the tree grow the largest, most vigorous root system it can. Let it recover all of 2017 with no other work, other than watering & fertilizing. Use a media that is well draining but has a fair amount of organics. At this stage I like a blend of perlite and what every your favorite nursery style mix. I use roughly 50% perlite, the rest being Promix, or other good quality potting media. NOTE - I do this with maples, I do not use this media with pines. Maples like a rich moist soil. This will work well. Perlite is very lite weight. Makes moving around these big flats an easier task.

I use Anderson Flats. They are 15 x 15 x 5 inches deep, and have mesh bottoms. They are heavy black plastic and will survive in full sun for 10 or more years before becoming brittle. They retail for about $10 at a number of Bonsai Supplies sellers, or can be purchased directly from Anderson if you do a 50 piece minimum order. They hold about 4 or 5 gallons of media, so are good as grow out trays for most nursery stock in 1 to 5 gallon nursery pots. You can build your own boxes, use similar dimensions. Use wire mesh to cover gaps left for good drainage. Nothing special about anderson flats except they are easy and made to a convenient dimensions for my purposes.

I would let all the trees grow with no work for all of 2017, maybe even 2018. Don't start chopping, air layering or "training" until you have vigorous growth, they need to look full and bushy. If at the end of 2017 they don't have considerably more foliage than they have now, you need to investigate your horticulture, and make improvements and see if you can get them bushy by the end of 2018. Then they will respond well to what ever you end up doing. And gives you time to learn a few things before making choices that you can not easily undo.

I like the red leafed maple a lot. The rest can work, but the red leaf one I can see it becoming bonsai.
 
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Thank you I will get them in growing pots and get them full as I can but thank u for the lengthy information and taking the time to do it
 
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