Trident from Mr. Kim's

[milehigh_7]

I found this trident and again I thought it was a kind of interesting. I have no idea what direction to take with it so opinions are welcome.

 

[Alex DeRuiter]

How low can you go?

Chop?



Are those exposed roots actually feeding anything or are they just hanging out of the substrate? Can you cut them back to reveal the nebari?

Chopping to that branch to make it the leader would give you really nice taper.

 

[davetree]

How big is it ? It doesn't look that big, so you could easily make a taller tree if you like, or cut back to the first branch.

 

[milehigh_7]

I will put the caliper on it tonight when I get home.

 

[Alex DeRuiter]

Look like, what, two or three inches at the base? I think cutting further up would create a pretty taperless trunk, but it depends on what you're thinking in terms of the final look. If you cut to that first branch you'll be able to put really nice movement in it. You could cut higher up, but you might want to grow some sacrifice branches towards the base to thicken that up if you do. However, even with sacrifice branches, it'll take a loooong time to get better taper.

Always necessary to point out this is my opinion. Anyone else could certainly have better advice.

 

[Dav4]

How low can you go?

Chop?

View attachment 22987

Are those exposed roots actually feeding anything or are they just hanging out of the substrate? Can you cut them back to reveal the nebari?

Chopping to that branch to make it the leader would give you really nice taper.

My thoughts exactly...and get it into a larger training pot/box.

 

[Smoke]

I found this trident and again I thought it was a kind of interesting. I have no idea what direction to take with it so opinions are welcome.

If I might ask....interesting how so?

I find the tree to be fairly straight so was curious where the interest was. Two disisions will have to be made.

One- Formal upright or a broom type tree

or...

Two- Chop and gro...repeat.

I prefer chop and gro to bland upright trees, unless the trunk has a lot of charecter which this tree seems to lack.

Prune it back hard now and watch for a bud to pop out low on the trunk. When it does nurse that a long and cut off all the rest. Then in spring chop back to the new low bud. I did that here and then it became a sling shot. The two leaders were really growing girth to the bottom of the trunk so I let them go. I recently cut away the left trunk in favor of the right side leader. Now I will let it grow this year and cut back again to improve what I already have.

Branches are there down low so I have kept them growing, as well as allowing the leader from the past two years to remain so it will add wood faster. The current leader is twelve feet tall. Two years!

 

[milehigh_7]

Thanks Al, Just what I was looking for. I was hoping you would post. I will spend some more time looking at it tonight.

 

[milehigh_7]

So it turns out that the stuff around the base of the trunk was sphagnum that had mostly rotted away. I am guessing that this was an airlayer a few years ago that had been forgotten about. So I pulled off the moss and where the darker area is it tapers to about 2" at the top of the roots. Gonna follow Al's advice and hopefully get an "Al" type result. ;-)

 

[Alex DeRuiter]

Now there's a better base.

Looks like something nice will come of this. Were you able to uncover any surface roots? If so...pics! ;-p

If the roots are a big sparse -- some really thick ones and a few think ones -- you can always chop the large ones back come next near, then plant it on a tile or a rock to promote radial root growth...then chop the roots back each year to improve the nebari before you start working on the top. This being the case, if you do need to work on the nebari, it would be best not to touch anything on the top so you can keep strong energy going into creating a good nebari. Keeping it unchopped and moving all that energy into the base is extremely valuable, so you should find out what you want to do with it and come up with a plan before next year.

I'm assuming the roots you pruned from the substrate surface weren't dug down too deep, so losing them probably wasn't anything significant.

 

[milehigh_7]

It was all old rotten sphagnum on the surface. There was really not much to speak of for roots.

 

[Alex DeRuiter]

Depending on how the nebari is, you could have a really nice little tree there. Are there any semi-visible surface roots below the feeders? Could you scrape any of that soil from the top to reveal any of the nebari? Being that it was sphagnum moss, the layer site could've been a bit further down depending on how they did the layer...so you might have a surprise waiting for you a bit further down.

If you feel like messing with it, it shouldn't do too much damage to search around a tiny bit. I feel like I'm the devil on your shoulder right now. haha

 

[biglou13]

im thinking

chop for broom style and work towards a low wide canopy

 

[snowsurf125]

I bought a 3 gallon can last year with about 5 or 6 little tridents from him. The biggest was about 1 1/2-2" at the base. I bought mine to start working towards a forrest in the future, even if it is a small one. When I finally separated the trees, I noticed they were all layers. I've gone through most of his stock over the past year or so, and most of the tridents that look like that are layers. Some trees have layers on them from '09. As far as the tridents, if its under 3", its probably a layer. Most of his maples either go from stick size, to 1-3", to quite a big larger. And anything smaller is almost guaranteed to be a layer. He has layers everywhere.
As far as your tree, I want to play devils advocate and say broom style, but there are much wiser and more interesting suggestions here.

 

[Smoke]

The one great thing about tridents is you never have to settle. You can make it nearly anything you wish. The only element to this is "how much time do you wish to invest to get where you want".

 

[milehigh_7]

I am willing to invest as much time as necessary. I am in no hurry.