Acer seedlings

[squizzy]

Ausbonsaiers,

I picked up this tray of acer seedlings at one of the commercial nurseries a few weeks ago and had plans for them to go into a forest planting next year. After a few of the recent discussions on seedlings not being able to support themselves after a few years I am not as certain about this being a viable option. I think they may be a seedling of A. palmatum dissectum atropurporeum as a guess given there colour and the deepliy cut leaves. Does this mean they are destined for death soon?

If not what would you do with this tray in the meantime? would you wire some shape into them? would you cut them? Or would you just simply leave them?

Cheers

Squizz

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[Luke308]

After a few of the recent discussions on seedlings not being able to support themselves after a few years

Sorry I just have missed that thread, could you please provide a link?

My advice is if you don't try you can't succeed. So what have you got to lose? Then again, they may need to be grafted onto Acer palmatum root stock? but being I haven't read the recent thread you talk of, I'm only guessing. But like I keep saying, a member of my club has JWP that he has grown successfully from seed, which he was told you can't do. And he also has great autumn colour on his Japanese Maples, even though he lives in the Adelaide plains, which according to almost every other South Australian, they say "you cant grow Japanese Maples unless you live in the hills". So what have you got to lose? You shouldn't take everything you hear as gospel, as there is always an exception to the rule.

Good luck, I hope you make a fantastic forest that survives for decades

[alpineart]

Hi squizzy , i'm surprised these are as healthy as they are and as big ,which i would consider them to be 2-3 year old .They may have been hydroponically grown if a commercial grower has grown them .I would be inclined to contact the supplier and or the grower and find out how they have established them .Usually Seed grow purples and lace leaf and most of the ornamentals don't have a strong root system to support the canopy .These look absolutely great , healthy and thriving .

Now all you need is the know how , that's where the supplier may be able to help .I can't for the life of me get them past the second /third season and i have seed grown 1000 or so over the years .Only 1 remains alive to date and its lost it natural purple colour to become a mottled red/green .Good luck with them .

Cheers Alpineart

[squizzy]

Hi Alpine,

They have come from a nursery about to close down. I dont think there is a great deal of technique in growing them by there looks. They could be younger then you think though as they have been growing in shade. I have them in full sun to mid afternoon. Might just keep them as is and see what happens.

Cheers

Squizz

[alpineart]

Hi Sqizzy , mate any info on growing these would be a bonus , definitely worth chasing the growing technique before they close .

Cheers Alpine

[shibui]

These are not A. dissectum seedlings. A. dissectum vars are all weeping and have much more dissected leaves than these. I'd suggest these are seedlings of an upright variety of A. palmatum. Though the new leaves are reddish the mature leaves are green so its probably not even one of the red leaved varieties. Many palmatum varieties have red new leaves that change to green as they mature.

Having said that they will still be ok for bonsai.

What to do depends on what you want to develop.
For small sized bonsai cut back to maybe 5 cm, feed and water well. Allow new shoots to grow to 30 cm then cut back to first pair of leaves, repeat as often as possible until good trunk size and taper is achieved. Palmatums tend to throw lots of shoots at one place when pruned. Excess shoots should be removed before they cause inverse taper. Just leave 2 or 3 shoots from any spot on a trunk or branch.
For larger bonsai pot into a larger pot or in the ground. Plant with the trunk at an angle to give movement to the base of the trunk. Allow them to grow freely until winter then cut back to about 10cm tall. Because the roots have not been cut back for bonsai I'd dig it next winter and cut roots back hard to get plenty of feeder roots close to the trunk. Allow free growth each year then cut back a little higher each winter to build a trunk with thickness and taper.

In my opinion wiring trunks like these produces trees with little taper and mediocre trunk movement.

[squizzy]

hi shibui

thanks for the info. I would only disagree with one of your claims that all disectums are weeping. A.palmatum disectum seiryu is certainly upright. after reading a bit of info in a maple book of mine I have realized I cannot be 100% certain of the trees leaves for at least 5 years and anywhere up to 8 years according to the info from this book. I dont take this a the absolute right answer though. It may be that you are indeed absolutly right. I have grown a few acer seedlings in my short history but I believe these show certain characteristics that I have not seen before which is what lead me to believe they might have been disectum. I cannot conclude from this that anyone is right or wrong.

I do like your theory on no wire it makes a lot of sense.Cutting and grow sound the way to go if they were to be individual trees however I want the forest to look like a lot of tall slender trunks reaching for the light in a dense forest so I wonder if wiring might work here. I want to develop a group of 15 and in an appropriate tray for there size. would you plant these as they are into the appropriate tray next winter as they are or would you develop them individually for a year or two and then do it?

Hi Luke.

I think it was a topic by alpine about weaker strains of seedlings not supporting themselves after a few years. I dont know how to post a link so someone else might do this for us.


Cheers

Squizz

[kcpoole]

Hi Squiz
What Nursery did you get from and when are they closing?

I have grown Acre from seed and had good success.
Some I have in the ground and some still in nursery pots. When I the ground I lift every second year to root prune and trunk chop ( may get chapped more often). I plant at an angle and then after chop will apply wire to the new shoots to position them so they get good movement a month or so after the chop.

Ken

[shibui]

Ok Squizz, Seryu is the only upright dissectum cultivar but because its so different its not usually included with the others.
These seedlings could be from seryu -most of the seryu seed I have grown reverts to little or part dissected so its possible but to have a whole batch of dissectum atropurpurea seedlings show upright habit and only partly cut leaves would be unusual surely? I have never had an upright seedling from a weeping cultivar seed in 20 years.

Lots of the seedlings I grow from upright vars have deeply divided leaves and more or less serrate margins, probably from the Matsumurae group of palmatum. I suspect that's what these seedlings are but it doesn't really matter because they are seedlings and are genetically different to the parent anyway - (a newer book I saw recently had split palmatum up to give Matsumurae species status. Does anyone know if this is official?)

As i said, these seedlings will still be ok for bonsai but as seedlings cannot be given the name of an existing variety as they are all genetically different.

For a group planting I use a few older seedlings wth a bunch of first year ones so there if variation in trunk thickness. Sometimes you can get enough variation in a single batch but not often. Maybe if you feed and water some better to grow them bigger?
Wiring to get trunk movement may be ok but you will still have little taper. Hopefully this will come in time.
For groups
I plant a number of seedlings into a single growing tray and allow them to grow on together - seems to get the trunks to match better than using trees grown in isolation. I also find it better to have lots of seedlings to choose from as some just won't match the rest of the group. Each year I pot up some pots with 2 or 3 seedlinhs close together in the same pot. These can then be used in groups to give a better variation in trunk spacing - nothing worse than a forest planting where all trunks are equally spaced.

Look forward to seeing the group.

[squizzy]

Hi shibui,

Thank you for your post. Firstly let me say you seem very knowledgable in maples so I will probably hassle you for your opinions quite a lot in reference to my maples. I love to learn from others and also make my own assumptions from what I have learnt. In the case of the seedlings not being from palmatum dissectum atropurpereum a would agree you are probably right and I can see that makes sense now. Your wording sounds like it came directly from a book that I have here called Japanese Maples by Vertrees saying "these seeds cannot be given the same name of an existing variety as they are genetically different".

Any way what I have done is put up some photos so you can see the difference that I am talking about.

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I was wondering weather these seeds could possibly be from somthing like the elegans variety.

I have always found maples to be such beutiful trees and I cannot help myself but buy one when I come across a different variety in the nursey. I bought the elegans last autumn and its colour was amazing given I had got it from a nursery only 2 km from the coast in sydney.

thanks again shibui and I will keep you posted

Squizz

[squizzy]

Hi Ken,

I just realized that I hadnt answered your question. They actually came from Davidsons at galston. They have now closed and there stck is on grays online I believe???

Might be worth looking up

Cheers

Squizz

[kcpoole]

Thanks Squizz
found it online here and the Auction finished tomorrow, Pickup next week
http://www.graysonline.com/sale/5001989 ... s?spr=true

Ken

[squizzy]

To anyone interested,

Just got another maple today. Supposedly its rare. Its rare enough for me not to have heard of it. I couldnt resist so I grabbed 1.

Has anyone got experience in this maple

Cheers

Squizz

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[shibui]

I managed to keep one alive for a little over a year. My references say it sets plenty of seed but most of it is not viable so getting seedlings is difficult and its supposed to be hard to get cuttings to root. Good luck!

[squizzy]

Any clues as to why yours died shibui