Trident maple in ground

[yanktonian]

Hello!

Longtime lurker, so fascinating to watch y'all do your thing. I'm a rookie tree killer and live east of Atlanta GA USA (zone 8a). I planted a trident maple many years ago not realizing how larger it would eventually become and since then my landscaping plans have changed. I'm going to remove the tree, but thought I'd ask about how to use it as bonsai instead.

My questions are:
- can I develop nabari by digging back soil from the trunk to expose it
- what time of year can I trunk chop to work on taper? I've seen early spring and late summer, but our growing season is long here.
- after the trunk chop how many years before I can dig it out and deal with the tap root.

It's about 20ft tall with a 6inch diameter trunk just below the surface and 4inch diameter 3inches above the surface.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Greetings and Welcome Aboard BonsaiNut!

Looks like you’ve got a big project planned.

A 6” Trident trunk would be a really big start for your entry into bonsai.

There are a plenty good Trident folks on site, so I’ll do the basics and let them follow. Looks like a chop now to let it backbud and get some branches growing before digging and working the roots early next spring would be a good timeline. That may be late for your area.

Also you’ll need to get an idea of how tall you want the tree to ultimately be. The first cut is at about 1/3 of the final height.

A couple things you can do will help others respond further.

1. Post some images of the tree and the nebari are.
2. Double click your icon on top of the page and add both your location and USDA zone information there. I know you said it in your first post….yet… This will be on you icon for each of your responses on any post/thread made, so folks don’t have to hunt the data down.

cheers and looking forward to seeing your future posts.

chers
DSD sends

 

[yanktonian]

@Deep Sea Diver thanks for the response. I figure that the tree is coming out anyway, so this is a way to keep it going if I'm successful with moving it to a little pot. I also figure that I have time and patience that I've not had in the past. Here is a pic:

 

[Shibui]

Contrary to popular opinion bigger is not always better, especially for bonsai. Big bonsai can be impressive but bigger also means bigger faults and bigger problems, not to mention the sheer size and weight you'll need to manage when moving, pruning and repotting your bonsai.

Nebari is already quite good enough for a ground grown trident. You can deal with that when it is dug. Nebari is not 'developed' by exposing. Nebari is either there or not there. Removing soil just lets us see it. When you do dig I'd recommend cutting the lateral roots very short - around 1/2 to 1 trunk diameter long. More than 90% of new roots will grow straight from the cut ends so cutting short will mean new feeder roots close to the trunk will fit into a reasonable sized pot eventually. No difference in survival whether you cut trident roots long or short but the best time to reduce roots seems to be at initial transplant before branches above are fully developed.

Vertical straight trunk could be a problem depending on what style you try to develop. The roots are now well developed so it will be difficult to do anything except a vertical initial trunk. My guess is that broom or modified broom (natural) style will be the best options for this tree.

Large chops take years to heal over. Also takes years for any new leader to grow to match the large stump diameter. Neither is a deal breaker but just be prepared to spend 5-10 years on the final development stages.

Tridents are resilient. I grow and dig a couple of hundred of these each year for the past 30 years and have no problem doing trunk chop and root pruning in one operation. Trunk chop can be done in winter (here) or later in spring after leaves are open. Before leaves open is also OK in conjunction with root pruning but otherwise I find excessive bleeding from cuts around bud burst. I'd say you could do an initial trunk chop now and get really good results.
I have some reservations about chopping older trunks like this straight down to final height. Older trunks sometimes fail to bud well and can result in part (occasionally all) of the trunk dying back, often taking some roots with it in the process. I no longer allow tridents to get to this size before first chop so not really sure if a gradual height reduction over a couple of years will help or whether you should just go for broke and deal with consequences after.

 

[sorce]

Nice.

Welcome to Crazy!

Sorce

 

[yanktonian]

Contrary to popular opinion bigger is not always better, especially for bonsai. Big bonsai can be impressive but bigger also means bigger faults and bigger problems, not to mention the sheer size and weight you'll need to manage when moving, pruning and repotting your bonsai.

Nebari is already quite good enough for a ground grown trident. You can deal with that when it is dug. Nebari is not 'developed' by exposing. Nebari is either there or not there. Removing soil just lets us see it. When you do dig I'd recommend cutting the lateral roots very short - around 1/2 to 1 trunk diameter long. More than 90% of new roots will grow straight from the cut ends so cutting short will mean new feeder roots close to the trunk will fit into a reasonable sized pot eventually. No difference in survival whether you cut trident roots long or short but the best time to reduce roots seems to be at initial transplant before branches above are fully developed.

Vertical straight trunk could be a problem depending on what style you try to develop. The roots are now well developed so it will be difficult to do anything except a vertical initial trunk. My guess is that broom or modified broom (natural) style will be the best options for this tree.

Large chops take years to heal over. Also takes years for any new leader to grow to match the large stump diameter. Neither is a deal breaker but just be prepared to spend 5-10 years on the final development stages.

Tridents are resilient. I grow and dig a couple of hundred of these each year for the past 30 years and have no problem doing trunk chop and root pruning in one operation. Trunk chop can be done in winter (here) or later in spring after leaves are open. Before leaves open is also OK in conjunction with root pruning but otherwise I find excessive bleeding from cuts around bud burst. I'd say you could do an initial trunk chop now and get really good results.
I have some reservations about chopping older trunks like this straight down to final height. Older trunks sometimes fail to bud well and can result in part (occasionally all) of the trunk dying back, often taking some roots with it in the process. I no longer allow tridents to get to this size before first chop so not really sure if a gradual height reduction over a couple of years will help or whether you should just go for broke and deal with consequences after.

Going for broke this coming weekend! I appreciate the input and wisdom. I plan to leave it in the ground after trunk chop and plan to wait to do any root work until next spring.

I just don't want it getting any larger than it is at this point.

 

[Tbrshou]

If your gonna just leave it in the ground then just leave the tree alone unit about February/March for our area. Ideally I would chop it gradually as to leave room for a possible leader. Wire the leader up then put it back in the ground to allow that leader to thicken and so on, while working the roots at the same time.It's about to get REALLY hot here and u r making a risky decision by digging now imo.