AusBonsai

Hey guys!

I just posted an introduction in the cafe section...

I bought a maple today that I need some advice on. Any tips, what to shape, what to cut etc would be awesome! I'm very new and would love some help on this

Front?

RHS when looking at front

Trunk

in comparison to a 30cm ruler

What would YOU do with this maple.

That is some nice movement at the bottom of the tree.
I would cool the jets on cutting it as it will soon be autumn.
If you are busting to have a crack at something I reckon you need to grab a Juniperus squamata as you can work on these at the moment.

Welcome to Ausbonsai

Thanks Damian!

I'll happily wait Only got it because I liked the look of it and it was a great price for the size!

Excuse my lack of knowledge... but what defines nice movement at the bottom? haha

Also what would you do to it and when?

Thanks for the helpful input!

The second picture shows a nice angle, for me anyway.
As far as what to do when, there is tons of info on maples in the deciduous section.
No need to excuse yourself, we all start somewhere mate
I am still learning myself.

In my opinion this maple is not a good starter tree. The dead wood at the graft will not heal over and more times than not, the graft join will be noticle for life. You would be far better off sticking the tree in the ground and forgetting about it as a Bonsai. In my opinion, you would get a faster result and a better tree starting with a 2yo cutting and starting from scratch.
I think you'll spend a lot of time on something that will always be ordinary with an unacceptable defect.
Having said that, plenty of people have made the same choices. Some people learn from them and end up with good trees.
A local Bonsai Group would be a good start if you're looking for help.

Hi Maple,

Thanks for the advice!

Instead of scrapping it completely... is there anything I can learn from this try? i.e. techniques to practice? My mate told me he was going to carve the deadwood to give it a nicer effect. Thoughts on this?

I wouldn't carve a Maple myself. I think you will always have that graft evident issue anyhow.
If you wanted to have a crack at something, look up aerial layering and give that a go in spring. Find a thicker area on the trunk above the scar to layer to give yourself the best base (thickest to ensure taper) possible. If that works, look at structure and thickness of the branches to start designing your tree. If you are looking for advise, I would go down to the library and borrow Harry Tomlinson's book on Bonsai. It is one of the best books for people starting out. I certainly got a lot out of it when I first started.
Good luck!
BTW, there would be an opportunity to thread graft branches as well. The tree certainly needs more branches. You can use seedlings to achieve this or wait for branches to grow which would be another year before you could do this. I think Tomlinson touches on these techniques as well. A lot of work if you go down that track but you may be looking for the experience.

Hi Dutchcakes,
There are several good trees available off this stock. You could do several layers and get at least 3 or 4 trees.
Have a look on the Wiki site. Do a search for Air Layer. Then click on Mackray Howto on applying multiple layers on the one tree. This will show you what needs to be done for multiple layers.

The right time to do this is when you see the new buds forming in Spring.

Regards Ray

maple wrote:In my opinion this maple is not a good starter tree. The dead wood at the graft will not heal over and more times than not, the graft join will be noticle for life. You would be far better off sticking the tree in the ground and forgetting about it as a Bonsai. In my opinion, you would get a faster result and a better tree starting with a 2yo cutting and starting from scratch.
I think you'll spend a lot of time on something that will always be ordinary with an unacceptable defect.
Having said that, plenty of people have made the same choices. Some people learn from them and end up with good trees.
A local Bonsai Group would be a good start if you're looking for help.

I disagree Maple. Reason is, I don't think that's a graft at all. I think it's a big wound. The foliage on the top part of the tree and the branch growing from below the wound is identical. So, I think the route for this tree is to air layer off the very top part of the main trunk (somewhere round the red line) and then once the layer is removed, cut it right down to the first branch for a much smaller tree with great taper (somewhere near the yellow line). In time you can reduce the height of the remaining piece down to somewhere near the green line.
Cheers,

Andrew

You are most likely right about the graft after another look (I had the laptop on my knee while watching Die hard last night) but the point is that scar and base are of no use in Bonsai. That deadwood would also travel a long way down. The aerial layers were already suggested and your positions sound very good.
I still believe a new enthusiast would be better off buying a young, healthy stock with no gross defects so he can learn to find the front of a tree, the first branch and wire etc. Too many times people buy crap from a hardware store because it's big,cheap and think they can make a silk purse from a pigs ear.
I also think too many new people aren't told this and end up with poor quality collections. These trees don't just get spoken about in this forum- they are in Clubs at workshop nights. I'm sure you have seen them as well.
There will be many opinions about this- I just got one of them.

maple wrote:You are most likely right about the graft after another look (I had the laptop on my knee while watching Die hard last night) but the point is that scar and base are of no use in Bonsai. That deadwood would also travel a long way down. The aerial layers were already suggested and your positions sound very good.
I still believe a new enthusiast would be better off buying a young, healthy stock with no gross defects so he can learn to find the front of a tree, the first branch and wire etc. Too many times people buy crap from a hardware store because it's big,cheap and think they can make a silk purse from a pigs ear.
I also think too many new people aren't told this and end up with poor quality collections. These trees don't just get spoken about in this forum- they are in Clubs at workshop nights. I'm sure you have seen them as well.
There will be many opinions about this- I just got one of them.

Agree with you 100% on the fact that not enough people learn to buy good stock early enough!!!! Yay! That said, this fella now has the tree, so he can do one of two things. Either he can plant it out and forget it, or he can work on making a bonsai and learn from it. I guess that's up to him, but I'm not sure that I agree that a scar that size necessarily means it's disqualified as a tree. No reason why a maple can't have uro, and make a feature of it. It could be carved out, cleaned up and accentuated. Just an idea, but either way there's lessons learnt here, and that's a good thing right!

Cheers,

Andrew

I doubt Very much it is grafted, just a large trunk chop that has not been cleaned out. That in itself is not a large issue either.

If you ignore the long lanky top, then there can be a nice tree in the base of it. I would love to see the nebari though. You shodu remove the Moss from the trunk as soon as you can, it will keep the bark wet and prone to rot.

There is at least 2 -3 other trees in this one, and before that lower trunk with the Uro is removed, I would like to see a picture from the left hand side please.
From that side it may well give very nice movement from the base up thru the bend and than regrow a new top above it. Need to see the Nebbari as well so get rid of the moss


Large Scars and wounds are call "Uro", and although not traditionally made on Deciduous stock, many people are now realising that in nature, the decid trees actually have deadwood, scars and other damage, so why not include them in our Bonsai?

http://www.bonsaiempire.com/articles/ad ... dent-maple
http://bonsaibark.com/wp-content/upload ... h-uro2.jpg

Lots of other examples around the web too than just these 2 links.

Ken

I think winter will be the best time to assess is trees' bonsai suitability. In winter you'll be able to bare root and have a good look at the root spread. It is the roots that will decide the front of the tree, not the branches. Between now and then, maybe you should do some study on good roots, good soil and good repotting techniques so that you are ready.

Have fun

Adam

Well dutchcakes, you probably got more advice here than you were anticipating and I think it's all pretty good. You will have lots to think about before acting, and I think this should be a really good tree to learn on. I think the most important thing is to look up your local club and meet with them. It's much easier to see the real character, problems, and potential of a tree in person. Not to downplay this forum, which is fantastic. Good luck, I look forward to seeing updates as you work with this.

Wow... You guys are awesome!

I'll respond properly when I'm home, and definitely post that photo. I'll post a 360 reverse panorama that was you get a full view of the tree!

Also the tree was bought from a bonsai nursery not hardware store... So I kinda thought that was a good place to start. Looks like I was wrong! Haha great advice though guys, look forward to giving these ideas a crack

Edit: Also definitely a trunk chop. I think they had a bigger tree and cut it into smaller ones. There's another similar cut at the top of the the longer branch. Will take a photo and post it later as mentioned above