restoring and old trident

[craigw60]

Ron Andersen imported this trident from the Kato nursery in Omiya during the late 1980s. It was the first of quite a number of tridents he bought into the country. After a number of years the tree became too heavy for him and he gave it to an acquaintance of mine. Last year in the middle of winter I received an email from this guy who I hadn't heard from in many years, he offered to sell me the tree. While I hadn't seen it for a very long time I remembered it well and jumped at the chance to own such a fine old imported tree.
It was in very bad shape the branches had been just run over with scissors for many years so there was big lumps on the end of each branch with up to a dozen twigs shooting from each lump, the potting mix was very bad and full of big clumps of spag consequently most of the fine roots had rotted, My job over the next few years is going to be re-building the ramification and doing a bit of branch selection. When the tree came into leaf in the spring the leaves were huge and I was a bit disappointed but its seems as the summer has progressed I have been able to reduce them a lot.
This tree is a bit of an old fashioned tree in that the Japanese don't grow tridents with such large widely spaced surface roots anymore, the trend these days is to have evenly spaced perfectly radial roots. It it also teaching me a bit about field growing as I can see the spacing and magnitude of the sacrifice branches.
I have to say I am really looking forward to years ahead when it has a lovely fine twiggy ramification to be enjoyed over the winter months.
Craigw

[Scott Roxburgh]

Craig,

Is this the tree that you posted about 6 months ago? If I remember correctly you cleaned up all of the dead bits/knobs off the branches.

I am very keen to see the improvement over the next few years, it really is a great tree, you're a lucky man.

[Ash]

Very nice base Craig, I like the negative space between the roots. Ash

[Aussie_Bonsai]

the rootbase is out of this world. Even though, i think having a smaller, even rootbase is more effective in creating a realistic small tree(bonsai), as you said the japanese aren't going for the massive roots quite so much anymore.
Still not a bad bonsai overall

[craigw60]

I like the root base to, having this tree is giving me ideas on how to grow good tridents. It looks quite good now but will not be so good in winter as the branches are still pretty messy.
Its the same tree Scott, and yes it was a serious stroke of luck being able to obtain it.
Craigw

[Ron]

I love that root base: very, very impressive.

What a beautiful tree to own and care for.

Ron ...

[alpineart]

Hi Graig , very nice Impressive Bonsai , i would like to see something like it grace my benches that for sure .Cheers Alpine

[lennard]

I also like the roots as is.

The finer radial roots you refer to fuse over time and that does not look natural anymore!

Lennard

[Bretts]

I would jump at this one too Craig
Not sure why you would be worried about big leaves at the moment. I would think lots of big leaves would even be a plus at the moment to get the guy rolling in energy. Also I wonder why it is in the greenhouse I would think almost full sun would be the best for it's development at the moment?
I am looking forward to seeing it bare. The top looks a little long and thin for my liking(only suggestion I can think of is a couple of sacrafice branches up the trunk to help thicken and also shorten the top just a bit) and the secondary branches seem a bit too far out.
I don't mind the roots at all. A couple of root grafts probably wouldn't hurt though.
I would love to get my hands on this

[Scott Roxburgh]

I would love to get my hands on this

You can form a nice orderly line behind me Brett

[craigw60]

Hi Brett the tree is outside I only put it in the poly-tunnel to take the photo because it has good light for taking pics, the branches are a concern and once I build some ramification they could get a little longer, it also has way too many back branches.
The reason I have been reluctant to shorten the branches is they have great movement and old bark, its a bit of a quandary for me how to deal with that.
I thought it might be a selected form for bonsai so was expecting small leaves and short internode spacing, but its just a seedling trident I would say, am not too worried about the leaf size I know they will come down with time.
Craigw

[bodhidharma]

How very privileged you are to be working on such a specimen. I know you will do an outstanding job on it. Hope fully i will see it in its glory one day.

[Damian Bee]

I would love to get my hands on this

You can form a nice orderly line behind me Brett

Thanks for showing it Craig, it is a lovely tree.

[Jarrod]

Pretty sure i called dibs on it the first time i saw it up there so

[Bretts]

Sounds like the line is getting a little disorderly