japanese maple

[walko]

g'day all

finally got around to defoliating my 'mikawa yatsubusa' japanese maple that picked up not all that long ago. I finally see what i have to work with aswell which is good.
If anyone has any suggestions on the styling of this tree that would be great

cheers daniel.

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[LLK]

Others please correct me if I am wrong, but from what I remember, it is best not to defoliate
young trees, as they need all their feeding resources (leaves) to grow in the best possible way.
However, since the plant is bare-branched now, you could decide on choosing an apex and
wiring down the main branches.

Lisa

[walko]

hey lisa

ah really i didnt know that to late now how young is too young? this one is around 12yrs so i am told

[Dumper]

i do agree with lisa in that.

john

[walko]

ok thanks for the comments ive learnt something today, ive only started with maples this year i have a small tridet aswell.

[nishiki3]

your maple is one of the most dwarf maple varieties. i think its old enough to defoliate. i did graft it about 6 years ago. cheers steve

[craigw60]

I am with Nishiki no harm at all in defoliating it, it needs to be shorten drastically
Craigw

[walko]

hey steve,
yer i did a little bit of research on it and found out it is a dwarf variety, so this tree was grafted by yours truely?

[walko]

I am with Nishiki no harm at all in defoliating it, it needs to be shorten drastically
Craigw

hey mate
thats good to hear i was getting worried ive had it not long havent done anythn to it besides feeding an watering

[nishiki3]

i can age your tree at 8 or 9 years old. the understock would have been 3 years old when i grafted it and the graft would be 5 to 6 years old. the variety mikawa yatsabusa was very new to us at that time. because of the very close bud internodes it does not produce much useful grafting wood. you have a rare and sometimes very expensive maple, look afer it. cheers steve

[craigw60]

Hi Walko, I bought one from Steve last year and planted in the garden its a fantastic maple you should treasure it. just don't over water it while its defoliated remember trees don't use much water when they have no foliage.
Craigw

[walko]

i can age your tree at 8 or 9 years old. the understock would have been 3 years old when i grafted it and the graft would be 5 to 6 years old. the variety mikawa yatsabusa was very new to us at that time. because of the very close bud internodes it does not produce much useful grafting wood. you have a rare and sometimes very expensive maple, look afer it. cheers steve

thanks steve, the age isnt a big issue as its a awesome maple and will be be looked after

Hi Walko, I bought one from Steve last year and planted in the garden its a fantastic maple you should treasure it. just don't over water it while its defoliated remember trees don't use much water when they have no foliage.
Craigw

hi craigw, i only tend to water it every couple of days as its in a 12-13 inch pot and doesnt get late afternoon sun so hopefully should be all good

[LLK]

by nishiki3 » Yesterday, 18:20

your maple is one of the most dwarf maple varieties. i think its old enough to defoliate. i did graft it about 6 years ago. cheers steve

Hi again, Walko, sorry if I worried you with my opinion re: defoliation.
I still have a question, though, especially for nishiki3 and CraigW. The maple we are talking about here is a "yatsabusa",
that means "8 buds" in Japanese and refers to the very compact growth of a plant. Mikawa yatsabusa is also described as a tree with really compact growth. Now, defoliation is done for the purpose of leaf reduction, and it produces greater ramification.
Why should you want greater ramification in a tree that already has dense ramification? It seems to me that with bonsai culture the leaves on this beaut little tree would reduce gradually anyway.
I have several maples that also have a dense growth habit (Kamagata, Beni Yatsabusa, Kotohime) and I always have to thin out
their branching sometime during Spring. None have big leaves or outsize internodes, after 7 - 9 years of bonsai-ing.
About defoliation in general, I consulted my online bonsai bible, Bonsai4Me, on http://www.bonsai4me.com/AdvTech/ATdefoliating.htm
I'm sure your tree will come to no harm, Walko, and wish you lots of pleasure from it.

Lisa

[nishiki3]

any chance of an update

[walko]

any chance of an update

hey nishiki, not much to update at the moment but will be doing abit of work on it shortly will post when done.

cheers daniel.