AusBonsai

Hi all,

This is kind of a carry on from another one of my posts.

The tree I worked on today is a Japanese Maple. It is Acer Palmatum Coonara Pygmy.

Front


Side 1


Side 2


Above is the tree prior to pruning.

I found quite a few branches that needed to be repositioned and a few more which had too many shoots at one junction. These were all cleaned up and wired loosely (to reduce scarring) as required.

Some branches had to be removed all together - a difficult choice now but there were smaller advantageous shoots which would lead to a better tree and much better winter silhouette a few years from now.

The apex was too far forward and as such, I pruned the apex down in favor of a new apex further back. In time the current apex will be reduced and pushed back while the new apex is allowed to grow higher and stronger.

I look forward to exposing some of the Nebari this winter. As this tree was an air layer I am confident that I will have some very workable material under the soil.

Front part way done.


Above you can see that the tree is now much more open. More light and wind can now penetrate which will hopefully activate some buds further back in the areas that I need.

Finished for the day:


Top


Thanks for reading.

Kind regards,
Mo

A little winter update, as you can see the right side of the tree is lacking significantly and so too, is the front, in branching and structure.

I am more than likely going to add one or two trees to this to begin to fill it out. Given this tree isn't easy to come by, I will more than likely layer the two branches on the right and just use those. We'll see how we go, still plenty of years to go!




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Not coonara pygmy. Looks like your standard A. palmatum. Coonara grows about 50-100mm per season and has extremely short internodes with the middle lobe often abruptly short.

treeman wrote:Not coonara pygmy. Looks like your standard A. palmatum. Coonara grows about 50-100mm per season and has extremely short internodes with the middle lobe often abruptly short.

You've pretty much just described my tree exactly, and it's definitely not your standard A. Palmatum .

I'll post further pics in spring when the foliage comes out again. The foliage you see in the pics above are after summer burn, the leaves regrew larger than their original size. Also the internodes are impossibly close together but I guess that's not easy to see from a picture hey .

Mo


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Hey Mo. How did yours go? I'd love some advice from you or anyone else about pruning of these in a S.E. Queensland climate.

Man I love a natural looking tree. Really like what you are doing to this tree. How about an update?

Hey all,

Thanks guys, will post some updated pics tomorrow. Its grown a fair bit and normally I'd be trimming it soon but this year I plan to let most of it grow out to allow me to do several approach grafts next winter.

@Julz, pruning Japanese Maples is different to pruning a dwarf variety such as this. I have no idea of the climate you're in though (never been to any part of QLD really lol) but I'm sure there are several members on here that could advise!

Updates:

this one got knocked off its stand and copped some serious die back. Here's hoping whats left makes it through...


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Very healthy looking tree. Hope you don't have to much damage.

fredman wrote:Very healthy looking tree. Hope you don't have to much damage.

At the moment, well over half the tree is dead. Really disappointed with this.


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MoGanic wrote: this one got knocked off its stand and copped some serious die back. Here's hoping whats left makes it through...


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Hi MoGanic,
Sorry to hear this mate. I hope there will be enough still alive to redevelop the tree.

Regards Ray

Sorry to hear that!
But this is just anther opportunity to create an even better tree!

I'm just going off one of Ryan O'Neil's video stories... Wishing you every success!


Cheers
EZ
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Thanks guys, just hope the die back doesn't go any further...

If nothing else - at least the Mrs will let me replace it with a new tree haha


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