White trunk anyone? kaede progression.

tim_meh87

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I've seen many Chinese and Japanese maples with these beautiful white trunks, they really do look stunning, so I set out to achieve the same... and the results are amazing. All I did was pain the trunk with 50/50 water and limes sulphur. What do you think? Tree is now being developed for ramification, I'm going to try hedging it as Walter Paul suggests. Also lots of grafting to be done also.1439824734196.jpg
 

JoeR

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I like it! Has potential.

Why did you wire the apex on the left tree like that? I see you are training that other branch to be the new apex but I would have just chopped it off instead of wiring it down.

How long have you been doing bonsai?
 

tim_meh87

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trident-maple.jpg
I like it! Has potential.

Why did you wire the apex on the left tree like that? I see you are training that other branch to be the new apex but I would have just chopped it off instead of wiring it down.

How long have you been doing bonsai?

Thanks Joe :) I'm going for this look on the tree, basically cut the tree in the picture in half and I have mine. It's a tree owned by Junichero Tanaka, owner of Aichi-en in Japan. I draw a lot of inspiration from his work. It's a very unique tree, as you can see the apex became the main branch.

I've had bonsai since I was about 8 years old,im 28 in september,i blame the karate kid movies, I didn't have access to great trees, as in South Africa specifically the city I'm from called Durban, bonsai are grown from seed in a pot, there isn't much to look at for inspiration. So I read books and then got my first Internet connection, and in the last 5 years my tree collection has gotten bigger. Moving to Cape Town helped a lot, as there are great examples of trees here, John Naka visited the bonsai Kai here and taught a lot to the growers.
 

Alain

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Nice job on your tree and amazing tree as inspiration!

The only stuff I was inspired to do from Karate Kid was to bit the crap out of the potential bullies. I ended-up knocking myself out with home-made nunchaku. :)
 

barrosinc

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The wires on the top left are not doing too much (right after the heavy bending), give it some movement, they look straight and it is already wired, so... why not.
 

Adair M

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As long as you know that your "inspiration" tree is famous for being an odd ball!

The ramification is exceptional, but the rest is, well, really unusual. Tanaka has so many traditional trees, it's fun to to have an off the wall strange one to play with.
 

tim_meh87

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The wires on the top left are not doing too much (right after the heavy bending), give it some movement, they look straight and it is already wired, so... why not.
Thanks for the spotting. Will adjust tomorrow morning and give more movement.

I'm going to try hedging as Walter Paul calls it to get ramification. Hope it works.
 

tim_meh87

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That's
As long as you know that your "inspiration" tree is famous for being an odd ball!

The ramification is exceptional, but the rest is, well, really unusual. Tanaka has so many traditional trees, it's fun to to have an off the wall strange one to play with.
That is the beauty of the tree. It's beautifully unusual. I love that it's a bonsai that looks like a tree. So many Kaede are the cut and copy triangle shape, fat nebari, tapering to a fine point. You know the kind I'm talking about?
 

tim_meh87

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Nice job on your tree and amazing tree as inspiration!

The only stuff I was inspired to do from Karate Kid was to bit the crap out of the potential bullies. I ended-up knocking myself out with home-made nunchaku. :)
Oh I've done that too!
 

Adair M

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That's

That is the beauty of the tree. It's beautifully unusual. I love that it's a bonsai that looks like a tree. So many Kaede are the cut and copy triangle shape, fat nebari, tapering to a fine point. You know the kind I'm talking about?
Oh, yeah, fat trunks, great nebari, great taper...

Who would want one of those? Lol!!!

Peter Tea did a write up on your tree in his blog: www.petertea.com. All about its history, styling, etc.
 

MACH5

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Tim great tree you chose for inspiration. Well known not only for being an oddball but for its great technical and artistic merit.


The biggest drawback for me with your tree is the two trunks being almost the same thickness. Do you have a plan to address this?
 
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tim_meh87

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Tim great tree you chose for inspiration. Well known not only for being an oddball but for its great technical and artistic merit.


The biggest drawback for me with your tree is the two trunks being almost the same thickness. Do you have a plan to address this?

I'm going to have an escape branch on the left trunk to thicken it, or cut the left one down a few cms and graft a new leader on. Still deciding tho. What do you think?
 

Smoke

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The tree needs more years to see the real plan emerge, which I'm sure it will.

Right now though, how about some background into that pot. It looks repaired and with gold or at least gilt?
 

tim_meh87

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The tree needs more years to see the real plan emerge, which I'm sure it will.

Right now though, how about some background into that pot. It looks repaired and with gold or at least gilt?

Sure, the pot is Japanese, brought to South Africa by Rudi Adam, he stores a lot of his pots in a tunnel, he has a dog that likes to walk through the shelves, and I think this is one of the ones the dog broke.

Japanese pots are in short supply, and many growers here don't see the value in a good Japanese pot. The pot was for sale in its broken pieces for a steal. I repaired it with an epoxy and liquid gold leaf, painted carefully on in 4 coats over the epoxy. If I say so myself I'm really happy with my work it looks really good for my first Kintsugi attempt.

A lot of people here throw their pots away if broken. I get too attached to things. And if I can get them at a bargain broken then why not?

IMG-20150728-WA0005.jpeg IMG-20150728-WA0002.jpeg
 

MACH5

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I'm going to have an escape branch on the left trunk to thicken it, or cut the left one down a few cms and graft a new leader on. Still deciding tho. What do you think?


I would grow a leader from your left trunk. Planting the tree in the ground would be the fastest way to achieve any significant girth increase. The growth will have to be really substantial to be able to expedite the thickening of the trunk. It will take some time. The difference in trunk thicknesses does not have to be dramatic but just enough to establish one of the trunks (in this case the left) as your dominant one.

I would not encourage any strong growth and keep it all in check on the right trunk. Great job on the pot! :)
 

rockm

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You are working at so many cross purposes here, I don't know where to begin.

First off, quit with the trunk painting with lime sulfur. It makes maples look extremely weird and can lead to soil issues with the quantities used. Also such detail work is usually left until the tree is "completed."

The trunks your are working with will not produce the tree you're aiming at. They're both the same caliper and will stay that way unless you drastically shorten one to mask the similar diameters. That's what happened to your model tree. One trunk dominates the other. With yours both are equal (and boring). Choose one as the primary, chop the other by at LEAST half, two third would be better.
While you're doing that, get the tree out of the pot and into the ground (assuming this species can be grown as a landscape plant in your area). You are looking for substantial growth to bulk up leaders and develop the canopy. Development time for that can be halved if this is in the ground and not in a pot.
 

klosi

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It seems nice, I like the twin trunks. It still needs a lot of time and if you have a ground to pot it in do it. Is it too late to repot in you climate? Also what is this soil you're using?
 

tim_meh87

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It seems nice, I like the twin trunks. It still needs a lot of time and if you have a ground to pot it in do it. Is it too late to repot in you climate? Also what is this soil you're using?

I like it the size it is, and will be root grafting. It is too late and has just undergone a big root prune.

As Akadama isn't available in South Africa, I have all my trees in a mix of Leca, crushed silica sand and German peat. Works really well here as it gets very hot in summer. Great holding of nutrients in the Leca. It's light expanded clay agregate
 

tim_meh87

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I'm not aiming at the tree specifically to have a replica in size, the inspiration tree is just that. Also it's ogata size so it's huge. This maple I have is kifu. I can't have very big trees
 
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