Largish Trident Maple

[BonsaiElmo]

Hi folks,

I recently picked up an early birthday present for myself, in the form of a large three trunk trident maple.

Has a very nice fat flared base (the base pretty well filled the large pollybox it came in). I did not have size/scale references in the photos but one pic has a spray paint can in shot.

There is not a lot of movement early on in the trunks, considering what my options are for styling.

I know carving on decidious trees is not popular in Japan, but I'm thinking it might be a way to introduce some more character to the otherwise straight fat trunks. The tree already has a nice uro on the largest trunk (well i like it) - and a scarred root below which could be hollowed out so more. I have been checking out some of the carved tridents progressions viewtopic.php?f=129&t=5315
Can't find the link for the nice hollowed out trident FlyBri posted... I've also been checking out Walter Pall's site and adamaskwhy.

Can anyone suggest any other places I might find inspiration for carving Maples? And any suggestions re the tree are welcome.

Cheers
Elmo

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[Kevin Nel]

May I suggest doing some major trunk chops and starting the tree up again to bring in nice movement and taper. Carving could work, but it would probably rot away fast.

[Guy]

unless this is going to end up a very large bonsai,I can't see any way forward without a couple of major trunk chops -then a couple of years scar healing

[BonsaiElmo]

I was thinking of taking some air layers and then reducing, though how low would you make the trunk chops?

[kvan64]

Airlayering is a way to go with this. Unless you don't want to keep triple-trunk design, you shouldn't go too low.

[kcpoole]

Airlayer the tops off, but would love to see a full side on shot of the Basal Flare side
Cannot really get a good ide of the trunk movement in that view but sus pect it might be the other side to this vert of mine.

For me maybe turn in to a twin trunk and lose the "seedling" at the back
I prefer taller more slender trees, so would cut back the main trunks to the first large branch and use that as the upper section of both trunks as the apex.
to get movement, between the bottom and top section i would drill and hollow the heartwood and then bend at the junction with levers cranks and wedges as necessary

Cut back the upper section to be about 1/2 - 2/3 the length of the lower trunk and then regrow a new apex.

Graft in branches to suit along the length of both trees

5-10 years you will have a magic tree.

Ken

[BonsaiElmo]

Thanks Ken.

I'd actually been thinking of something similar myself, but was hesitant to post my virt below with people suggesting a low trunk chop as the only viable option.

I might need to read up on how to "drill and hollow the heartwood and then bend at the junction with levers cranks and wedges".

Where do you stand on deadwood features on Maples?

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[Isitangus]

Would something like this technique
http://ofbonsai.org/techniques/styles-a ... -technique
Reduce the scars and healing time?

[kcpoole]

Uro are fine on Maples ( or any decuous tree) as they are natural anyway , but Jin ar not.

Many nice decids are carved to make a feature of the hollows and damage of time and look great if you can get them right.

Re the hollowing. Get some larger off cuts from somewhere and have a test on them.


See this thread here where i doco'd the process i used on an old Azalea to make a large bend. ( and reasons similar to yours as to why),
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2484&hilit=Azalea+bend
Azaleas are very brittle, but this shows what can be done despite that and some other good ideas came out in the thread too.

Have a read and play and see what you can do. Chopping low and wasting good growth is not the only option.

Ken

[BonsaiElmo]

Cheers Ken.

I will definitely give that a try. As you say "if it fails I can always go back to plan A."

So just to confirm, after making the v cut into the branch you have drilled (or dremelled) additional heart wood following the semi circle of the bark. Does the grafting tape help prevent bulge at the join, or was that more the carving the top branch? By "Goo" do you mean cut paste? Do you preference any in particular? I have tried Kiyonal, Top Jin, and the grey putty stuff in the white and green tub. Is any preferable for this kind of partial grafting?

I read someone suggesting making similar cuts, without the bending, as a means to heal large cuts fast on maples. The v cut is made and left to heal - the living branch quickly tries to callous over the cut section and when the callous is almost covering the exposed cut you remove the remaining part of the branch. They were specifically dealing with large branches on the trunk. (edit it was on a crape myrtle)
http://bonsaitonight.com/2011/08/02/big ... pe-myrtle/

[BonsaiElmo]

And thanks Isitangus - just read the article on the van meer technique.

Sounds like a good idea.

[kcpoole]

the idea of Dremmelling out some of the heartwood came later and just to reduce the amount of force needed to bend the tree and also to potentially reduce the amount of cambium damage. Note also Stymies idea of glueing it together but do not glue the cambium

I use the tube paste, but your preferred stuff will be fine.

The tape was to try and stop the joint from drying out and hopefully get the cambium to heal faster.

Yes the re wounding of the scar tissue will promote faster healing. I think that the rolling over slows down after a while, and re wounding the edge will speed it up again. I have not tried it myself tho.

Ken

[JaseH]

This series of vids on developing a large trident maple I found very interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HM_gRy ... 3DE7JtH6cA

He covers re-wounding to speed up healing and also a bunch of other techniques - there are about 10+ videos following the progress of this particular tree, I think they might be very helpful for you. His other videos are also quite good.