AusBonsai

I've been on a mission reducing the amount of young & pre-bonsai material i have kicking around and my sights turned in the direction of this Japanese Maple layer that has been on for about 18 months now to get enough roots on it to remove it. The layer is below the graft line so its still straight species root stock, but raises the root level up to a level that allows a clump to be started as that is the natural habit of this cultivar.

I did just buy a young Katsura japanese maple so i broke my 'no more young material' rule, but they are hard to find so i can justify it, where this is a pretty common cultivar to get.

I figure that either it survives this and i get to start work on this as a bonsai, or it dies and it's one less bit of young material to keep faffing around with I only used a bonsai pot because I had no suitable plastic nursery pots around.

I'll update in spring whether it survives or not!

Chucked a bit of wire on this one to start off the multiple trunks of the clump. Had to be a bit restrained with it as i snapped off a couple of branches in the process.

I'm sure i'll end up cutting back and regrowing most of it to get better taper grow into it, but it's a start

No issue at all with this one in the end, has just jumped away out of spring so i have a new maple to work with! The spring foliage colour is really great and very small too.

Lots of flaws with this tree, two massive primary bar branches right off the trunk for a start but hey, a long long way to go on this anyway.

Well done!