Can Silver Maple be Bonsai?

[Kahless]

I have a few young trees in my garden which I thought were red maples at first. It now appears that they are silver maples based on what my plant identifying app says. They have deeper lobes, longer internodes, and grew really fast. My question is, can silver maple ever be decent bonsai or should I just give them away? My grow-out garden is getting really crowded and I'm trying to select which trees stay and which go.

 

[Kahless]

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Those look like red maple leaves to me... A. rubrum. The leaves can present slightly different profiles on the same tree.

I have yet to find a tree identification app that is particularly accurate. I usually test them by submitting lots of different photos of leaves on the same tree... to see how many different ID's it gives me

For easiest proof, look at the underside of the leaf. Silver maple is silver - almost white.



To answer your question - both A. rubrum and A. saccharinum can be used for bonsai. The leaves are a little on the large size, so they work best for larger trees, and you will want to develop fine ramification and defoliate every year to keep the leaf size small.

 

[Kahless]

I'm guessing they are hybrids. All the leaves look like they are somewhere between Freeman and Silver.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

I'm guessing they are hybrids. All the leaves look like they are somewhere between Freeman and Silver.

Given the variability of leaf size and appearance, it is impossible to use such a simple photographic guide to identify a tree as a hybrid, particularly if the tree appears to be naturally occurring (versus a hybrid developed as a cultivar for the nursery trade like A. x freemanii).

These are all A. rubrum leaves on the same tree. Note the difference in size and shape:

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Also... here is what the underside of an A. rubrum leaf looks like. It is pale green and doesn't look anything like a silver maple leaf (at least to me).

 

[jkirb1000]

@Bonsai Nut use “picture this” app. it’s the best, I use it all the time. When you open it, it’s gonna ask you to buy it. If you look in the very top left corner, it’s almost greyed out where you can’t see it, it’ll say “cancel”. Click that and just use the free version. It’s literally the most used app on my phone. I saw your post as I’m looking towards a few silver maples I found in my yard. As someone around the waxhaw area, I registered here just to tell you this .

‎PictureThis - Plant Identifier

‎PictureThis® identifies 1,000,000+ plants every day with 98% accuracy - better than most human experts. Get your gardening questions answered and become a “green thumb” with the plant identification power of PictureThis! Wonder the name of the beautiful plant encountered during your walk? Want…

apps.apple.com

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I volunteer with a prairie restoration group, "we" have tested several photo ID apps in the field and NONE are very accurate. "Picture This" was maybe 90% on the very common species, and poor on the less common species.

There is no substitute for learning to identify your plants from botanical keys. It is worth learning the traits that matter even if it means taking time to look things up.

An app like iNaturalist is good in that photos from the field are loaded up and indexed by experienced members. You can usually find good photos to compare your specimen to if you already have an idea what it is. Difficult if you don't know where to start

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Can silver maple be a good bonsai?

Well, one can certainly put time into using bonsai techniques on any woody plant and you will see some response.

The Japanese maple is an excellent subject for bonsai, in fact deciduous bonsai might be said to have been developed in part to enjoy Japanese maples. The have good spring and autumn colors that give many weeks of enjoyment. Leaf node reductions are possible, so a nice sense of proportion is possible. Alll good traits in Japanese maples.

Silver maples leaves start big and are more difficult to reduce uniformly. Spring leaf color is short lived, mostly yellow. Autumn leaf color is silver maple is at best a short lived, lest than a week, yellow. It is one of the least colorful of the maples. Silver maple does not reduce node lengths as nicely as JM or trident or Amur maples, leaf petioles tend to be a bit long. All in all there are better maples to put time in on. If you need a cold hardy maple. try Amur maple, Acer ginnala. If you are in zone 6b or warmer try Japanese maples. If you really want North American natives, try Acer rubrum (red maple) or Acer saccharum (sugar maple). If you try sugar maple, go big because they do not reduce easily, but they have beautiful spring and autumn colors, especially autumn colors, that make them worth working with. Silver maples have always disappointed me.

 

[Gabler]

I volunteer with a prairie restoration group, "we" have tested several photo ID apps in the field and NONE are very accurate. "Picture This" was maybe 90% on the very common species, and poor on the less common species.

There is no substitute for learning to identify your plants from botanical keys. It is worth learning the traits that matter even if it means taking time to look things up.

An app like iNaturalist is good in that photos from the field are loaded up and indexed by experienced members. You can usually find good photos to compare your specimen to if you already have an idea what it is. Difficult if you don't know where to start

You're right. That's a pretty good app.

 

[Michael P]

iNautralist is my favorite.