AusBonsai

I have some very young trident maples I purchased with the intention to use them in a forest planting. I'm in Melbourne, its now the middle of winter yet some of them still have green leaves, they havent looked like going dorment. Most of my other tridents changed color and dropped leaves long ago except for these few. Should I defoliate them to force them into domancy?

I think you will find after this weekend they may go to sleep.
Chance of the coldest period for Vic yet starting from today into the weekend.

Where are they positioned?

I too have a few tridents most lost their leaves some time ago.
One however was all green up until last week when it finally started to yellow and lose it's leaves.
Personally I'd just let them go (no defoliate).

I believe tridents (and other species) can happily go a year or so without going dormant.
However if they are a naturally deciduous species they will continue to weaken and potentially die in time.

Not 100% sure about the last statement but I'm sure some others can and will comment.

Trees know what they need to do all by themselves.
I have tridents both in pots and in the ground in various positions in my garden. Most have lost their leaves, however some still have some autumn colour, and one in the ground even has green leaves left on it.
We haven't had a lot of really cold weather yet in Adelaide however I think the next week or two should be cold enough for all to have dropped their leaves.
Forced dormancy is probably not necessary.

I too have some plants in the garden with green leaves.
Actually, my ash and elm in on part of the garden shows no sign of autumn color at all. 100% green but they grow almost 100% shade in winter because of a fence.
Others with more sun exposure have lost most of their leaves. These are all field grown in the ground while those in pots have all lost their leaves.

I am not sure if those that are green will finally drop their leaves but would really like to know if they don't, will they really weaken and die eventually.
I've always thought nature will look after itself. If it stays green, that is because, it is happy that way.

Any thoughts or experience from anyone?

I have this one Japanese maple that threw out a bunch of new leaves late in summer after the old set were burned a little.
The new leaves are still green and stuck to the tree, whereas the older leaves have gone red and all fallen off.
Because of this selective dropping of leaves, I get the sense that my tree knows what its doing for itself.

-Mo


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No need to worry so much Jase. Even if they still have some leaves you can still safely root prune and repot so just go ahead and do your forests. I have root pruned tridents quite hard when they are in full growth in November and December and they did not look back.

Thanks - I'll ignore their reluctance to stick to the schedule then for the moment!

I only picked these guys up in autumn from a local nursery so am not sure how they were raised before that.

I have some still growing madly with new shoot all over , and others bare as a baby's b*m
I have a small group of Japanese Maple still in full leaf and not looking anything like slowing down as well.

this cold spell now might change things tho.

Ken