Jun 25 2011

Trident pushing on after defoliation

My Trident is opening nicely after it’s early defoliation. I’ve been known to defoliate this fella twice in a year but after repotting this Spring I’m going to leave it alone now for the rest of the year.

Jun 11 2011

Trident Defoliated

I took this Trident Maple to the club meeting last night and a few of the guys were good enough to defoliate it for me.

This afternoon I took a few minutes to go over the tree and remove extended growth and unwanted branches.

Jun 9 2011

Japanese Maple Branch Structure

This is a Japanese Maple that I have had for a few years. It has gone through a few years were the growth has been weak and I have lost a branch or two. I have placed it into a training box to gain vigour and it has worked.

As part of the bonsai school with Peter on Saturday we defoliated the tree to examine the branch structure. I had shortened the overall branch length to encourage back budding. It was severely lacking in secondary ramification and I was hoping to find new growth on the interior.

Peter talking through the structure after defolation.

This is the tree now.

Here you can see strong new growth in the interior of the tree. These have been left long to encourage the branch to thicken. A branch like this on the lower limb should be one of the thicker branches and at least as thick as the one on the other side. Ideally we should have left the leaves on it to aid it’s strong growth. We got carried away with the defoliation 🙂

Jun 8 2011

Chuhin Maple Defoliation

Managed to get my Chuhin Japanese Maple defoliated today. I must admit, I’m very pleased with it so far.

May 22 2011

Maple Thinning

This Coral Bark Maple has grown rapidly this Spring to the point were the canopy is so full that no light is reaching the inner buds and branches. This needs to be rectified to avoid die back on the inside of the tree.

As it was the last day of the Premiership season with all the ups and downs of relegation, I brought the tree into the conservatory to work on. A rare occurrence in my house.

I took a quick snap before I started in earnest. Notice how little you can see of Sky Sports on the telly.

I then started to trim out any extension growth taking it back to the first two leaves on the branch.

Here you can see the centre shoot removed.

Now to let extra light reach the interior of the tree I remove one of leaves from each pair on the exterior of the tree.

This is the leftovers.

Now compare how much of the telly can be seen through the tree.

and here it is with a clear background.

It’s still early stages as far as development of this tree goes. It will need a major wiring in the Autumn to correct a few issues.

Oh, and I was gutted that Blackpool went down 😦

May 21 2011

The Bonsai Art of Japan Episode 2

This has got to be one of the better quality You Tube Bonsai channels, both in content and in production. I thought the advice on leaf pruning maples in this episode was particularly good. Wish they were longer!

The Bonsai Art of Japan Episode 2

May 18 2011

Strength 2 Strength

I checked this Japanese Maple today for black fly. None to be found but everyone else’s maples seem to have them. I had done a major repot on this tree back in the Winter. It was very weak last year and the branch structure was very poor due to a few bits dying back. As you can see it’s responded well.

I moved a few of the little accent pots I had sitting on the soil surface, right in at the corners and this is what I found.

It has responded that well to the repotting that it has produced new roots right out into each corner and was even trying to put roots into the accent pot! It is just loving that open mix of SC Pink and grit. Not fine stuff either as you can see.

May 12 2011

Shohin Maple Update

I posted this maple back on the 21st march HERE

(Loving this online diary. Great for checking back when tasks were done.)

Here’s an update on the tree. Every Spring is grows vigorously and has large leaves. I defoliate as soon as they harden off. That’s today.

The next flush of growth will have smaller leaves and a shorter inter-nodal length.

The wounds that I reopened and resealed in March are obviously healing strongly as you can see from the cracks in the cut paste. I’m hoping that by the end of 2012 I have no wounds at all.

May 7 2011

Trident Defoliation

This Trident Maple was the first Maple to come into leaf in my collection this year. It has been in my cold green house and opened at the start of March. It was repotted this year and is growing vigorously. The leaf has hardened off and extension growth is appearing all over the tree.

Some may think I’m early in defoliating it but I’m happy to bring it forward with such a strong tree. I’ve had this tree for 12 years and it never ceases to amaze me with its vigour. I had Stan, a new club member with me today for 5 hours working on trees and he gave me a hand plucking leaves.