AusBonsai

Hi, I've been lurking a lot on here lately and thought it was about time I actually got involved!

Just received this big trident today and potted it to begin it's 10/20 year plan.
Would love as much feedback/tips as possible when down the track it comes time to select branches/leader & trunk chops.

Here's the sellers photos that some of you may of already seen/taken?





I bought a big colander to fit in the grow box but the biggest one i could find still didn't fit.
The planting angle is a bit off but it doesnt really matter, I just wanted to make sure the huge nebari was covered and had space.
Might wait for it to settle before tidying up some of the scars with the dremel.
Thanks for looking,
Anthony

Nice stump mate. I like it

Lovely piece of material.

Do work of the chop as soon as possible because the cambium roll over quickly on the species. Do also seal the wounds because cambium do grow faster then.

It don't have to take 10 - 20 years to become something. Do select the branches as soon as possible and remove all unneeded growth. It is also a good thing to keep the top growth controlled to force growth into the lower branches you are going to get.

Looking forward to it's progression.

Lennard

Update:
She has had a decent flush of new growth but am curious as to wether I should let the growth run freely for a season or two to increase vigor
or select branches early, trimming off multiple shoots from the same area to increase new buds further down.
Thanks for any input.

select branches early unless you are developing a new apex than let that run untill desired thickness and chop for taper. You may not get all the budding in the right spots so letting a few shoots run to be future grafts maybe a good idea. I wire my shoots fairly early to try to encourage movement others directional prune. Most of my larger tridents in development have several grafts in them.

Tridents once chopped like this will tend to want to throw a lot of shots from the apex region, which will test your patience a bit. I tend to keep only a single dominant leader with the shortest internode spacing....let it grow and when the first few sets of leaves harden off, prune back to the first pair. This will usually encourage the tree to back bud more vigorously down lower on the trunk opening up more options for your primary branch selection. These will more than likely want to grow vertically, so I gently guy wire these tender new shoots once they reach about 3-4 inches long rather than try to wire them as they are way to fragile. They will also probably shoot multiple buds from the same spot which in most cases I again select the most dominant one with the shortest internode length.....as the branch grows and thickens, the internode length will naturally become more and more, but at this stage its no big deal... once the branch thickens to what I want, it is cut right back to the second or third internode and the process is repeated over and over. I think the best ramification is developed this way and unfortunately it takes a lot of time, but the end result is worth it. You have a very nice trunk to work with so put in the effort now and it will be a great tree in the future, i'm sure.

Shane Martin wrote:Tridents once chopped like this will tend to want to throw a lot of shots from the apex region, which will test your patience a bit. I tend to keep only a single dominant leader with the shortest internode spacing....let it grow and when the first few sets of leaves harden off, prune back to the first pair. This will usually encourage the tree to back bud more vigorously down lower on the trunk opening up more options for your primary branch selection. These will more than likely want to grow vertically, so I gently guy wire these tender new shoots once they reach about 3-4 inches long rather than try to wire them as they are way to fragile. They will also probably shoot multiple buds from the same spot which in most cases I again select the most dominant one with the shortest internode length.....as the branch grows and thickens, the internode length will naturally become more and more, but at this stage its no big deal... once the branch thickens to what I want, it is cut right back to the second or third internode and the process is repeated over and over. I think the best ramification is developed this way and unfortunately it takes a lot of time, but the end result is worth it. You have a very nice trunk to work with so put in the effort now and it will be a great tree in the future, i'm sure.

Hi Shane,

Can you show an example of the ramification achieved like this? I have a few tridents and am interested in this process.

Cheers,

Andrew

Hi Andrew,
This process is not anything new.... it's a common method which has been used for centuries originating back in China.....Clip & Grow. Rather than wiring every branch to get movement, they prune for direction change. As for ramification... pruning back to 2 buds will give you 4 new ones, and those 4 will give you 8, and so on. It's also not just a process exclusively for deciduous trees, but can be interpreted for ficus etc. The shohin Nerifolia below is one which responds well to this work. After many years of doing it my way and becoming dis satisfied with the way my trees were looking, I decided to gradually go through some of my trees and re work them from the ground up....literally. Not just my maples, but figs as well. Some trees i have been growing for 20 + years were chopped back to mere stumps to start again.

Freckl,
Do you have any pics of the whole trunk before it was repotted? Would be nice to see the entire base and nebari.

Thanks so much for your advice Shane it definitely seems that your advice is ringing true, would love to try some grafts at the end of this growing season with someone in sydney that has any experience in the area.

Here is it before getting potted:

nebari is about 20cm across

Freckl, this is a really nice bit of material, so you are off to a great start. If you control the growth at the apex you should be rewarded with many new buds to start your branch building plan. Grafting is something I also knew nothing about until I gave it a shot a couple of years ago...now I'm graft mad... ....I have a number of trunks in similar stage to yours and have now done many thread grafts to create the optimum branch placement where one is missing, and also numerous root grafts to improve the nebari. Once you've done it a few times, it's not that scary, but very rewarding.