Seed growing Japanese Maple Experiment

[TimS]

I have never seen a coral bark in seed before but good to know they are fertile, i will keep an eye out in future as they have some nice characteristics that may get passed on in some small way despite the genetic variation in the seed. I feel like they either don't strike from cutting or are very difficult to strike from cuttings but again i could have just misinterpreted something along the way there.

I had no luck getting shishigashira to strike from cutting but air layering was successful even quite late in the season.

[shibui]

I've always had great difficulty propagating Acer from cuttings. I can often get them to root but most die off soon after potting on. Layers and grafting are definitely more reliable.

[Keep Calm and Ramify]

Great dedication Tim
I only have one JM currently in my collection (& it's not even a "fancy" leaf type) The sun cooks it every summer as my yard lacks shade - but I still persist. I wish I could own one of your delicate lacey leafed varieties.....but oh the burn!
Good luck with the studies

[TimS]

Oh yes i know all about the summer leaf burn!

As the year passes and the weather heats up and cools down i rearrange my tree and bench locations in the garden for all my maple bonsai to either extend or limit the afternoon sun exposure. It's a bit of a pain, but my love of Maples makes it less of a chore than it otherwise would be!

I'm currently cutting back some very big old Camellias which will greatly extend the afternoon sun in the garden so i will have to take that into account this year and perhaps move them a bit earlier in summer than i normally would.

[TimS]

Progress update on these guys, all tracking remarkably well but they are attracting some unwanted attention from the local caterpillars! I've only lost the odd one or two here or there that were struggling along anyway the rest are looking remarkably solid.

There are some interesting leaf colours coming through though the vast majority are obviously green leaved.

[Watto]

Just a simple "well done" frmm me.

[gnichols]

Very impressive. Two reference books I would recommend, if you can afford them & track them down. Bonsai with Japanese maple by Peter Adams and Japanese maple, Vertrees & Gregory.

Sent from my SM-G570F using Tapatalk

[TimS]

thanks for the reccomendation gnichols, i will definitely look into those books. Japanese Maple has become my passion as i collect as many rare varieties as i can and try to propagate from them i have many air layers on the go and i'm tracking down more varieties.

Hopefully i can update this thread more soon, the seedlings are starting to shoot off into their 3rd and 4th pairs of leaves so the signs are good for strong growth from a majority of them

[SteveW]

I have quite a few disecctum maple as bonsai, most being grown from seed about 16 years ago. As Shibui says, it is a numbers game with a lot of losses in the second year. That said, you will get trees that grow well on their own roots, be free of trunk grafts, and have naturally weeping branches. Well worth the effort.

[TimS]

Next update, a couple of dozen have really started pushing on ahead doing well and only a couple more losses thus far touch wood. I haven't counted them recently but certainly well in excess of 300 still going. I have some photos but for some reason they don't want to display on the forum at the moment. Once i can work it out i'll post heir current size.

The tallest is now 3-4 inches with 5 or 6 pairs of leaves now with the other few dozen that have grown on around 2-3 inches tall with 4 or more pairs of leaves. The vast majority are still small but good to see some of them getting going and pushing onward. It gives me hope that there will be something to show for all the effort and lost space since they are on the outdoor table, chairs and the barbecue as well! All part of my cunning plan to keep the family Christmas gathering to a minimum

I have given them some slow release fertiliser at this stage, along with protection from the hottest part of the day and they seem to be happy with that setup for now which is good since the weather will be warming up soon.

Hopefully images will be following soon

[TimS]

Little update on these guys.

I spent the morning potting up the stronger ones (more than 3 nodes and decent height) I was thinking i might do 20 or so, ended up doing 70 and hardly making a dent in the number of seedlings in tubes in the garden There are dozens more i could pot up now but my back was getting sore so i decided to leave it for this week.

The mild December we've had in Melbourne means i'm still not having mass losses, i think I've lost less than 10 seedlings so far, but of the remaining 300-350 trees i would say at least 10-15% look like they will struggle to get through the whole of summer if it heats up like it is predicted to. There is quite a large percentage that look healthy and pushing on well so over the next few weeks i'll be potting up the strongest ones until i get down to those that look like they will struggle.

I am absolutely never collecting 1000+ seeds of ANYTHING to germinate in the future though. I adore Japanese Maple, but i just don't have the space to keep this up into the future!

[Max]

Fight the good fight Tim, remember there are those who would happily buy a few seedlings come winter. Do they post well? i dunno

[MJL]

You crack me up TimS. Great work - time to stop. Have yourself a Canadian Club and Dry and congratulate yourself on an epic effort this far!

On your second CC and Dry - ponder the forests and groups you can start. Save the best and strongest for heroic single trees.

On your third drink and as your sore back starts to feel better or go numb... think about the riches you’ll make selling such fine stock to AusBonsai folk ...


Then ... wake up .... and pack up your Bonsai tools, come back to reality and think sh!te .... I need to move house!

Seriously - well done on your progress.


Bonsai teaches me patience.

[TimS]

Thanks Max! Assuming they survive then there is no reason they shouldn't travel reasonably well, but as I've been told they do have a habit of turning up their toes in the second year so i'm going to have to wait until at least summer 2019 before i can know how many actually will survive.


MJL: I'm looking for a house to buy at the moment and my criteria is "space for my trees" and that's pretty much it . It's not just these maples, though granted they do take up the most space; i have seed grown Ginkgo on the go, 15 or so seed grown Eucalyptus, a dozen or more air-layers and 40-50 cuttings of Ficus benjamina. Not to mention all my pre-bonsai that are in the ground, motherstock trees for air-layering and my actual bonsai

The potted up maples are starting to take over the driveway now which i convinced myself was a good idea to take advantage of the 30% cut shadecloth over the carport to protect them At this rate i'll actually be a little relieved when the struggling maples start to die off just to give me half a chance of keeping up with it all! I had some other random garden plants (not bonsai) and i just put them on a table in my driveway with $2 each and got rid of them all that way, but the space i made with that has already been lost to my other plant-based projects.

I'm not sure 100% what i'll do with these maples, best to wait until i actually see how many survive the 2 year danger zone and then look at my options. I do like the idea of using a few for a forest or a clump, if i have enough i'll sell some off to the bonsaiaus folks as there are some really interesting leaf colours and sizes amoung them that would make beautiful bonsai in time.

I noticed a straight species Japanese Maple near me laden with seeds already and i'm trying my best to stop myself going back in a few months to collect it all and start the process again but with straight species

[TimS]

I took advantage of a cool and raining morning in Melbourne to continue potting up more of the seedlings, got through another 60 or so today and now I've almost run out of appropriate size pots. Fortunately they won't need to move up-size in pot for another year or two now though! The remainder are probably fine in tubes for now though as i started to get into ones who's roots only reach halfway down the tubes at the moment.

I also went through and did a cull of the weakest looking seedlings and removed probably 30 or so that was really struggling compared to most of the others. There are still some very small ones but they have strong shoots with lots of leaves coming on them so they get a chance for now.

Total potted up is 160, total still in tubes is 117 = Total seedlings 277. Not sure what the final number after summer will be though!

Photo with the entire batch of potted and tubed ones in one picture at long last sitting under 30% shade-cloth in the driveway.