How far can you bend a Japanese maple ?

[stocaz]

Hi all,

I was thinking of trying a raft style with a fairly young maple tree I've got,
The trunk is only about 2cm thick.

Obviously that first bend down low would need to be pretty tight & not sure if its possible or not.

I'm gonna give it a go regardless but do you guys think it may work ?
Any tips would be great.

I have no experience with heavy bending on maples and can't find much info on the net.

Thanks in advance

Ross

[lackhand]

I can't provide an exact answer, but if it were me I would start by repotting at an angle to minimize the amount of bend required. The rafts I like best typically have some exposed root anyways, so it looks as though the tree fell over and then managed to keep growing anyway.

[kcpoole]

Not very far unfortunately

They are very brittle and quite inflexible.
If you want to try, I woul split or drill the trunk first

Ken

[stocaz]

Thanks for the replies
I'll definitely try and drill before hand with the smallest drill piece I can find.

Ended up dropping into a shop on my way home and picking up a couple of really young maples which will no doubt be much more flexible

Cheers Ross

[Damian Bee]

If you wanted to make a raft Maple you could do the following.

At repotting time you could repot into a large vessel (eg a tomato box) lay the plant down on its side and trim off any roots on the upper side and branches on the underside. If necessary, cut a couple of windows into the bark along the underside of the trunk (or work with the wounds from major branch removal and put some hormone powder and sphagnum moss around the cuts, cover and keep them moist and encourage some roots to grow.

Working with a seedling is probably easier if you want some serious bends in the trunk though.

The main thing is experiment

[shibui]

I agree with Damian. When creating a raft style we generally do not bend the trunk. Just lie the tree on the surface and cut off any roots that are sticking up and cut off any branches that are growing down into the soil.

[Boics]

Yep,

And where you cut off the branches you generally use a scalpel or similar to cut out some openings.
The hope is that these will sprout roots.
I would say that it would be a neat idea to put some nice bends in the trunk first...
It would probably be even better to let it grow for a season if your tree is really young.

[Meagi]

Hi stocaz below is the best maple raft I've ever seen very old I reckon but something to shoot for mate I'm looking into developing the same sort of thing as yourself so will watch with interest here ...also buy a Peter Adams Japanese maple book for 34.00 you can't go wrong best book I've seen on maples .

[Damian Bee]

Meagi is right there.
Peter Adams books on Maples are great stuff.