…I hope.
Continuing my manoeuvring to keep my son on the bonsai bandwagon, I spent an hour or so this afternoon working on a tree. When my friend Stephen donated a few of his to the cause, I asked Matthew which ones he liked. He was drawn to this Root over Rock Trident. ( Not really a root over rock, more like a growing against a rock Trident.)
It’s well hardened off already and has extension growth on most branches. I decided to allow Matthew to defoliate it to begin with. Bit early, I hear you say! You might be right, but I find Tridents so strong and vigorous that two defoliations in the year isn’t a problem. I set him to work.
Blissfully unaware of my camera work, you can almost hear the concentration from here.
After defoliation we wired a few branches into place for practice and discussed the shape that the tree will take in future.
I talked about extending the foliage pads on the right, and keeping the left hand side tight to show off the rock and give the tree more interest. I then explained how, in a different pot, some negative space on the right would really help the overall image. I spotted an old Mica landscape pot under a bench and decided to show him what I meant. The pot was big enough to allow me to lift the planting out of the training pot and into the mica one without removing any root.
I told him that he needs to find a similar looking bit of rock or a big lump of moss to fill the gap between rock and root at the base.
I didn’t set out to do all this today, I think we got carried away!! I am confident that this tree will bounce back in a few weeks. I’ll even post an update here to prove it 🙂
And this is where I talked Stephen into posing with his Deshojo for scale purposes. You would think he’d look happier with a tree like that beside him 🙂
Next up is the Chuhin Maple that everyone seems to love, me included. It has also responded really well to a better mix.
and lastly is my Stratford Trident Maple. I have decided to lift it out of the greenhouse now that the leaves have hardened off. I usually de-foliate this one 2-3 times in the year. As it was repotted, I’ll hold back this year and maybe go for 1-2 times.
and another one taken today.
This shot shows the original chop wound on the tree. It’s almost totally healed over. The other little patches are Lichen.
Another chop nearing closure. I’ll reopen it this year to speed the process along.
This is a virtual of the overall size I’m aiming for with this tree. Hopefully with a smaller leaf and more definition and negative space.
The wounds in question
This is the wound after the edge has been opened. You can do this with a sharp blade or as I do for speed, a dremel. Care needs to be taken to just open it and no more. No point removing a years worth of callous with a dremel!
I then seal the wound again with cut paste.
To finish off a add a thin layer of PVA glue over the paste. This makes a better seal and helps deter the slugs. I know a few people who add slug pellets into the paste to stop them eating it.
If you keep an eye on the paste it’s easy to tell when new callous is growing underneath. You’ll see a crack appearing around the edge like in this photo below taken from a different maple.
Bonsai Eejit 