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Shohin
Posted a few times but this is my first tree thread. I have this red maple/Acer rubrum which started out as a cheap whip last year and grew about 3 ft over the season. It is currently in a 2 gallon fabric pot and needs to be up-potted or planted in the ground because the wind blows it over constantly. It needs a lot of work on the roots, trunk, everything. I think I want to end up with something naturalistic like a Walter Pall tree or a mature red maple in nature and maybe this is silly, but I also like the flowers a lot and was hoping they could feature prominently. So here are the questions:
1) Has anyone seen an Acer rubrum bonsai of flowering age/size? I read that they could flower at 4-8 years old but I'm not sure if they need to be a certain size as well. I've seen plenty of Japanese maples blooming at bonsai size.
2) How heavy is a 3 ft or larger bonsai? I realized I can't really compare it to lugging around nursery trees because they don't have the trunk diameter/branching a bonsai does.
3) While growing this out, I'm not sure how often to trunk chop it without leaving big wounds that will rot out? (read in other threads that this is a concern with this species)
I also picked up this Ilex verticillata and I'm not sure where to go with it. So far I'm leaning towards keeping one of the two trunks and doing some weird literati thing, but I can't quite imagine what that would look like. The first picture is what I'm thinking of as the front.
1) Has anyone seen an Acer rubrum bonsai of flowering age/size? I read that they could flower at 4-8 years old but I'm not sure if they need to be a certain size as well. I've seen plenty of Japanese maples blooming at bonsai size.
2) How heavy is a 3 ft or larger bonsai? I realized I can't really compare it to lugging around nursery trees because they don't have the trunk diameter/branching a bonsai does.
3) While growing this out, I'm not sure how often to trunk chop it without leaving big wounds that will rot out? (read in other threads that this is a concern with this species)
I also picked up this Ilex verticillata and I'm not sure where to go with it. So far I'm leaning towards keeping one of the two trunks and doing some weird literati thing, but I can't quite imagine what that would look like. The first picture is what I'm thinking of as the front.
