How many times can you defoliate a vigorous Trident maple?

[siddhar]

I wanted to push some of my larger Trident maples with lots of defoliating this growing season. Some Ive defoliated twice already and Im looking at possibly another two attempts this growing season. For optimal autumn colour when should I stop fertilising my Tridents?

[treeman]

I would't do it more than once more. You don't want to push it too much and weaken the tree.
I've had excellent results leaf cutting 2 times per year. The trick is to thin out all the resulting buds and twigs that form so as to avoid the branch tips thickening to much.

[shibui]

Siddhar, you seem obsessed with defoliating . Do you have a clear idea why you are defoliating trees? What are you hoping to achieve with repeated defoliation?

You should be able to feed right up to autumn. As far as I'm aware autumn colour is not a function of fertiliser, rather temp and water availability. Cold nights and sunny days give the best colour.

[Matthew]

Im with shibui on this one, Once , twice max and that would be over the whole grow peroid allowing enough time for it to regain vigor b4 autumn. again what purpose are you trying to achieve with so many defoliations? did you read it somewhere. I know alpine does some of his acers 4 times a season but hes nuts He may have a good answer for you.

[alpineart]

I'D rather be NUTS than NORMAL thanks Matt . I have killed all the Tridents bar one that i have , defoilated, seems pointless on a Trident i simple cut back to the first set of leave on top and the second set below n-mid way .They ramify differently to Japanese so i don't touch them now .Just trim trim trim .This is only after the basic tree has developed not during the development process with the trunk ..

Anyway Mathew whats wrong with being a Normal Nutter , that give me an excuse to be different or is that try to fit into the rest of the world

Sid from my experience here Tridents work and grow about 4 times quicker than Japanese Maples so trimming is a better method to improve the ramification which is why i defol' my J.Maples so many times , Mind you these J.Maples have 50mm plus trunks so they need some serious ramification just to build some serious structure quicker .I have 50mm tridents but they ramify all over without any defol work simply pinch the tip and the shoot out all over , with so many ground growing i use hedge trimmer to keep them in shape or it would take a month and i don't have that sort of time to waste.However eventually i will have to trim or remove some of the ramification work because it will cause issues later down the track .

Cheers Alpineart

[siddhar]

Siddhar, you seem obsessed with defoliating . Do you have a clear idea why you are defoliating trees? What are you hoping to achieve with repeated defoliation?

You should be able to feed right up to autumn. As far as I'm aware autumn colour is not a function of fertiliser, rather temp and water availability. Cold nights and sunny days give the best colour.
shibui

Yeah I guess I am a little obsessed! Now guys, I will only ask the question if after trawling through pages and pages of information I still dont have a clear understanding of the topic in question. I know that for "you, the more learned of the Bonsai world" that these sorts of questions can be frustrating. Please remember we all have to begin somewhere and learn from those who are willing to teach. I am very motivated and keen to see results with my hobby, call it obsessed if you like, but I think this is something we can all relate to. Thank you for all of your help guys, but if you find anything I ask frustrating, then please look away.

Im with shibui on this one, Once , twice max and that would be over the whole grow peroid allowing enough time for it to regain vigor b4 autumn. again what purpose are you trying to achieve with so many defoliations? did you read it somewhere. I know alpine does some of his acers 4 times a season but hes nuts He may have a good answer for you.

Matthew, yes mate I did read it somewhere and all Im trying to achieve with my trees is the most ramification I can get, so Im trying to apply as many techniques as I can in a growing season. I am happy with the leaf reduction I have already seen. Thanks again.

Alpine, as always mate, thanks for your advice and direction. Ill leave my tridents alone and stick to the conservative 2 defols a season.

[alpineart]

Hi Sid , your lucky to have joined Ausbonsai , when i started i had to be self taught cos i couldn't basically read .Couldn't or didn't learn at school. Yet i Qualified as a carpenter , give me a plan and i will build , give me a picture of a tree and i will style it the same . Everything else i have learn't from trialing and testing .How blessed you eager young fella's are to have this site . Don't worry I'LL tell to "p"off if ya Shari me . i'd be discrete with a P.M .

Keep asking and keep learning , if people do or don't answer that's fine .Just note the good info and leave the rest behind . But trial every possible idea you have because every climate is different .If you have 10 tridents put them in 3 categories and test them 3 categories out . In 12 months or 2 years after you have a constant continuous result publish your results , by doing this you will be helping the next newbies out , no doubt this topic will be buried under another 1000 other posts with 10,000 replies stacked on top of that

Mate i get dozens of P.M's and dozens of replies from the blog , if i didn''t want it , i wouldn't continue to do it . Then i would stop learning and others would stop maybe learning a few little different idea's and methods from a nutter

Cheers Alpine

[shibui]

Sidd, Keep asking questions but you need to ask the right ones! We now know, as I suspected, you want advice on how to achieve ramification but the question you asked was how often can you defoliate? - 2 completely different topics. If we had just answered your question you still wouldn't have the best answer. The reason I asked for clarification is that many beginners read about defoliation and believe its a magic bullet. It is a useful technique but will not achieve miracles and you can see from the replies there are better ways to achieve what you want.
You should also be aware that MORE is not always BETTER. Repeated defoliation could actually slow down the process you are trying to achieve by slowing the growth of the tree.

I agree with Alpine that repeated trimming is a much more effective technique to achieve ramification. Feed the trees well and trim as often as possible to build up lots of shoots. Allow shoots to grow to 3-4 sets of leaves then cut back to the first pair. Repeat as often as the tree will allow during the growing season.
note early in the season growth is often vigorous. If the internode to the first pair of leaves is too long cut the shoot right near the base - the second budding usually has shorter internodes that will build better ramification.

Keep asking questions and enjoy the bonsai hobby.

[siddhar]

Sidd, Keep asking questions but you need to ask the right ones!

You are right Shibui I guess I went straight to the punchline without asking a more worded question, something to remember for future posts

The reason I asked for clarification is that many beginners read about defoliation and believe its a magic bullet. It is a useful technique but will not achieve miracles

And yes many beginners including myself until now believed something miraculous could be achieved through a simple defoliation

[Matthew]

I proberly should of been more formal with my response. look at chinese elm and what can be achieved with constant pruning back to 2 buds to achieve ramification. if i did this when i first started my trees would be 2 years ahead. Tridents maybe dont ramify as well as chinese elms but i treat them the same except for 1 or 2 defoliations a year to assist in smaller leaves new inner buds and a fresh set of leaves for autumn colour.

[Bretts]

Has anyone read the latest bonsai Focus. More teachings that defoliating is not what we think it is.

[craigw60]

Firstly ramification and small leaves are one and the same, more twigs means smaller leaves.
I think that one defoliation a season on tridents is ample its the follow up which is important. Plucking off the large leaves which develop on the branch tips and on top not the branches is very important also removing the leaves growing underneath the branches.
Allowing light to get into all the branches is vital and this is achieved by constant leaf pruning.
I would guess that with constant leaf pruning I replace all the leaves on my tridents many times throughout the growing season with only one defoliation and constant leaf pruning as a follow up
Craigw