AusBonsai

Anyone who has worked in Japan or knows how they get the white trunks on maples?
Love this tree BTW!

Mike
you know I never really thought about it . I just assumed it was with serious age ? BTW That tree is the bomb!

Hi Michael
I've read something about the Japanese spraying lime sulphur on Deciduous trees in winter months...........

Tien

When I was taking trees down to show and sell at BSV some members made comment that the trunks of my tridents were much more white than those grown in Melbourne. At the time I could not think of any reason but discovered that the well water I was using in the nursery was quite acid. Maybe that was the reason for the white bark?
The lime sulphur angle Tien has suggested is a good one. It certainly bleaches dead wood when used strong as jin fluid so maybe also whitens trunks when used diluted.

Yeah tien is on the money diluted lime sulphur each winter whitens the trunk and I guess helps with pests.
At kokofu this year there was some amazing highly ramified Japanese maples with white trunks but still beautiful red tips.
I spoke to Bjorn and basically the apprentices spend days painting them with a brush being carefull not to paint the red tips

I have also read on the blogs of Japanese apprentices that they are painted with lime sulfur each year, will be doing it myself too

Let me know if you want any further clarification to the above treeman. I'm currently in Japan and still have a couple of nurseries to visit. More than happy to ask questions while I stroll the isles of perfection. I was at Koju-en in Kyoto yesterday and the trunks didn't seem to be white there, possibly due to Shohin being too fiddly to paint?

Cheers,
Pearcy.

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Can further confirm that it is line sulphur. With shohin you can literally turn the tree upside down and dip the trunk in to a bucket of lime sulphur (not joking). It is important to dilute it as well, if not you end up with trunks that look like they've literally been painted with white paint.

The method I've seen is to dip the trees (in diluted lime sulphur), leave them for a few minutes, and then rinse the trunks with water.

Also a side note about lime sulphur. They generally spray everything with lime sulphur in the winter. In Takamatsu we sprayed all of the pot grown and field grown trees twice.

Thanks all for the replies. I had a feeling it was the lime sulphur. I did that a couple of times a while ago but I guess you need to be consistent.
Pearcy, yes ask about everything and post it up. Always willing to learn! eg what dilution do they use in winter?

Of coarse they can look TOO white sometimes, like they've been painted with dulux ceiling. How many times during the winter do they spray/paint?

Even, thanks, I re-read your post and saw the answer to my question!

What's the dilution for winter spraying bare branches

I follow Haruyosi on facebook, and there's a mention of diluted sulphur in one of the comments where he shows how he both dips and sprays. This was done in January is his part of Japan.

reducing the usual dose about 30 times so that it is not so strong and damages the tree.

and further down the page he mentions 20times dilution...for his dipping

I started winter sterilization with Kuromatu.
I soaked several decades of Kuromatsu into the solution of the lime sulfur which was weakened to 20 times.

Yep, when I was in Japan in the middle of winter, the nurseries were a sea of bleached white deciduous trunks. When we asked they said they coat everything liberally with lime sulphur over the winter months.

Besides deciduous, Would you apply lime sulphur to Junipers and Black pines as well?

longd_au wrote:Besides deciduous, Would you apply lime sulphur to Junipers and Black pines as well?

The nurseries I visited did - benches, everything appeared to get a dose. Their reasoning was more for disease prevention than trunk bleaching.

melbrackstone wrote:I follow Haruyosi on facebook, and there's a mention of diluted sulphur in one of the comments where he shows how he both dips and sprays. This was done in January is his part of Japan.

reducing the usual dose about 30 times so that it is not so strong and damages the tree.

and further down the page he mentions 20times dilution...for his dipping

I started winter sterilization with Kuromatu.
I soaked several decades of Kuromatsu into the solution of the lime sulfur which was weakened to 20 times.

soaking.jpg

Thanks mel 20 or 30 is quite weak. I painted some males last week with a 50/50 solution. They seem to be ok to me. I might bring it down more though just in case! Apart from cleaning trunks, I want to see if there's any effect of those maple bud thrips in spring.