This tree was wired after the leaves fell, late November 2020
By the second pruning in late spring 2021, it was time to remove wires.
Using a photo of the leafless tree to make sure I don’t miss any wires!Wires removed, and lightly pruned, late April 2021.
And in mid-summer, it was time to get a look at what was going on under all that foliage.
During explosive growth, whorls and strong shoots can develop, which aren’t useful to the design of the tree. I left the long shoots in case one was necessary as a sacrifice branch, but most of the leaves were removed so I could prune back the growth to evenly-sized transitions and pairs of shoots at each terminal.
First right branch, pruned back to pairs of shoots, with good transitions and short internodes.Repeating this moving upward into the tree. Adding a few wires where necessary.Work complete, mid-July 2021.Night shot
Exactly 3 weeks later, here is how the tree has responded. The leaves are slightly larger, and the internodes on some shoots are longer.
So the tree was lightly pruned, removing long shoots back to the first internode, and some of the larger leaves were removed.
And then it was returned to the bench to continue growing out.
I have been studying bonsai since 1994, in an ever-increasing obsessive fashion. In our last 5 years prior to moving from Iowa to Alabama pursuing a career in the foodservice industry, my bonsai collection was limited to a few varieties that could survive brutal winters outside, or winters under dim light in the dank basement of our humble duplex...my wife puts up with a lot. Including the trailer hitch I put on our brown 1983 Chrysler New Yorker to pull a U-Haul full of trees to Nashville for a 3-month stop along the career path that led us to Alabama. 12 years later, we no longer have the New Yorker; and not a single one of those trees remain on my bench, having given the last holdout to a new club member this summer. I prefer collecting native trees and buying the classical species used in Japan, feeding organic, and reading everything I can get my hands on.
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2 thoughts on “Summer work on a trident maple”
Such a complicated process, Brian. I get in one hell of a muddle trying to see what needs to be done when the tree is in full leaf…
Such a complicated process, Brian. I get in one hell of a muddle trying to see what needs to be done when the tree is in full leaf…
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.