Ebihara maples

[Dav4]

I'm a bit of chicken after my work on the JBP. The maple is about 3 feet tall. I've removed much side branching from the long sacrifice branch. Would a cutting back to the red line on the roots be okay or too aggressive? Green duck feet indicate where I do a couple of approach grafts.
View attachment 129296

Whole tree.
View attachment 129295

Maples aren't JBP... you can cut back the roots very hard without worry. Use Adair's picture with the chopstick as a guide...you'll be fine.

 

[markyscott]

I'm a bit of chicken after my work on the JBP. The maple is about 3 feet tall. I've removed much side branching from the long sacrifice branch. Would a cutting back to the red line on the roots be okay or too aggressive? Green duck feet indicate where I do a couple of approach grafts.
View attachment 129296

Whole tree.
View attachment 129295

Should be fine

 

[thumblessprimate1]

Hope you done mind me asking related questions here, Scott and friends.

I removed more roots, but should I remove more to flatten the root mass more?

 

[Dav4]

Hope you done mind me asking related questions here, Scott and friends.

I removed more roots, but should I remove more to flatten the root mass more?
View attachment 129304

I would. You want one level of roots leaving the trunk. If this were my tree, I'd find the point where the trunk base flares the most, and if there were enough roots present 360 degrees around the trunk at that point, I'd remove the rest.

 

[Waltron]

great thread, I've got a pretty neat carolina hornbeam growing on a board in my garden bed, tempted to lift it this spring to get some screws in there, but really id rather not disturb it this year. But ill be getting my first Japanese maple this year, funny I've been doing bonsai for about 4 years and still dont have one. this one is growing in my mom's yard, my uncle brought it over from maryland as a seedling from one of his trees, plan to dig up and and ebihara the shit out of it this spring.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Hope you done mind me asking related questions here, Scott and friends.

I removed more roots, but should I remove more to flatten the root mass more?
View attachment 129304

It is better, but there are still 5 layers of roots. Remove the roots closest to the base that grow upward, continue so you create an even nebari. Darn difficult to explain in text. When you leave it like this, you will have a strong side and a weak side. Select the roots, keep enough to survive. Wait with rootgraft. There are pictures in this threat with less roots for bigger trees.

 

[iant]

Not to nit pick but I still feel that screwing the trunk to a board is no better, and potentially worse, than growing it on a cloth disk or a tile. I DO, however, see the point in choosing a single level of roots. In the maple that I posted on the prior page I could have removed more of the root levels below the top level. So I've learned something from this thread and when I repot I'm going to get it more of one level than 3 or 4 or 5.

But here's my reasoning on the lack of advantage of the board:

1) There is no significant lift up that happens if it's on a tile/cloth that's prevented by it being on a board. Look how flat this spread is with the cloth? Even if it did lift up a tiny bit that doesn't affect fusion of the root bases and a bit of a slope is natural. The roots aren't fusing because they can't lift up. They're fusing because they're attached at the trunk and they're thickening into one another.



2) Having it on a board and doing the nail thing 2 inches out from where the root bases are expanding and fusing does absolutely nothing in my mind. What are the nails doing? Roots are going to spread out radially anyway and if you are doing a great job horticulturally this area will be filled with roots. In my example here the nails would go where the red lines are. What are the nails doing there? There's no fusion there. I don't need to micromanage the roots in this location. I just need to grow the heck out of this tree with major top growth and root growth and the roots are going to thicken and fuse at the base at the trunk.



So personally, I'd consider skipping adding something that's 100% organic (the board) in favor of a disk or tile.

Just my 2 cents,

Ian

 

[Adair M]

Ian, here is another example, a couple years further along than Scott's.



As you can see here, the nails are directing the roots that are still pretty close to the trunk. The idea is to keep them from crossing.

Mr. Ebihara invented this technique. His Maples stunned the Japanese bonsai world when he started showing his trees. I believe he was an engineer, but sort of a recluse. No one knew of his techniques... then suddenly he became instantly famous! His grafting skills were unbelievable!

 

[0soyoung]

Ian, here is another example, a couple years further along than Scott's.

Nice nebari, but it doesn't yet look the least bit pancaky.

Mr. Ebihara invented this technique. His Maples stunned the Japanese bonsai world when he started showing his trees. I believe he was an engineer, but sort of a recluse. No one knew of his techniques... then suddenly he became instantly famous! His grafting skills were unbelievable!

Have you ever asked yourself why anyone would give away proprietary secrets? I cannot help but believe that he left out an important detail or two; maybe threw in some misleading things as well.

I've noted that quite often thin maple stems rest atop very extensive pancakes. Clearly these are expositions of his grafting (ala moving valuable branches that @markyscott has shown us, IIRC). But they make me wonder if the pancake nebari aren't all created separately, in another fashion and the tree is subsequently grafted atop.

What if we arranges a bunch of young seedling radially, with their roots on the outside perimeter and apices bent skyward in the center, all nailed to a board to not only keep them in position, of course (analogous to the popular wire-frame tridents), but to make them wavy so that the fusion lines are irregular (add chopsticks to further obfuscation). After a decade, it is likely nicely fused into a pancake. Now Ebihara's grafting skill enters, stage left.

... suppose?
When you say it will take 30+ years, who's going to disprove it?

Another way it could be done is to thread a number of seedlings through a tile, have them fuse, then selectively get rid of stems as @garywood described some time ago in his blog.

 

[Eric Group]

Nice nebari, but it doesn't yet look the least bit pancaky.


Have you ever asked yourself why anyone would give away proprietary secrets? I cannot help but believe that he left out an important detail or two; maybe threw in some misleading things as well.

I've noted that quite often thin maple stems rest atop very extensive pancakes. Clearly these are expositions of his grafting (ala moving valuable branches that @markyscott has shown us, IIRC). But they make me wonder if the pancake nebari aren't all created separately, in another fashion and the tree is subsequently grafted atop.

What if we arranges a bunch of young seedling radially, with their roots on the outside perimeter and apices bent skyward in the center, all nailed to a board to not only keep them in position, of course (analogous to the popular wire-frame tridents), but to make them wavy so that the fusion lines are irregular (add chopsticks to further obfuscation). After a decade, it is likely nicely fused into a pancake. Now Ebihara's grafting skill enters, stage left.

... suppose?
When you say it will take 30+ years, who's going to disprove it?

Another way it could be done is to thread a number of seedlings through a tile, have them fuse, then selectively get rid of stems as @garywood described some time ago in his blog.

That is the method @Smoke describes in detail in a couple places here and on his blog- allowing the Maple saplings to layer themselves and fuse across the top of a tile they are growing through, then you can keep it as a multi trunk or remove all except the main trunk you plan to keep, leaving the massive pancake root base... I think this is more accurate as to how those maples with the exaggerated pancake based are done. The Ebihara method described here is a good way of sorting the roots to keep them uniform and radially spreading from the base of the tree... but to get those exaggerated flat bases I think fusing multiple seedlings over a tile is the fastest method...

I have grown Maples and other trees over tiles and never gotten the pancake look on any of them. Maybe it takes 30 years of growing out to get there or something but I suspect that the guys producing so many of these in japan are getting there quicker..

 

[wireme]

Nice nebari, but it doesn't yet look the least bit pancaky.


Have you ever asked yourself why anyone would give away proprietary secrets? I cannot help but believe that he left out an important detail or two; maybe threw in some misleading things as well.

I've noted that quite often thin maple stems rest atop very extensive pancakes. Clearly these are expositions of his grafting (ala moving valuable branches that @markyscott has shown us, IIRC). But they make me wonder if the pancake nebari aren't all created separately, in another fashion and the tree is subsequently grafted atop.

What if we arranges a bunch of young seedling radially, with their roots on the outside perimeter and apices bent skyward in the center, all nailed to a board to not only keep them in position, of course (analogous to the popular wire-frame tridents), but to make them wavy so that the fusion lines are irregular (add chopsticks to further obfuscation). After a decade, it is likely nicely fused into a pancake. Now Ebihara's grafting skill enters, stage left.

... suppose?
When you say it will take 30+ years, who's going to disprove it?

Another way it could be done is to thread a number of seedlings through a tile, have them fuse, then selectively get rid of stems as @garywood described some time ago in his blog.

Somewhere sometime I saw photos of developing pancakes. Some had seedlings being grafted into the nebari but not threaded though the trunk as we often see. They were just vertical out of holes or gaps in the cake a ways from the trunk. It was explained that once they fuse a bit they are pruned flush and will callous over. A lot like the fuse through a tile and remove trunks deal but progressively continued outwards any time after.
I think with enough seedlings and dedication you could really expand a pancake beyond proportion of the trunk as much as you wanted that way.

 

[Adair M]

Nice nebari, but it doesn't yet look the least bit pancaky.


Have you ever asked yourself why anyone would give away proprietary secrets? I cannot help but believe that he left out an important detail or two; maybe threw in some misleading things as well.

I've noted that quite often thin maple stems rest atop very extensive pancakes. Clearly these are expositions of his grafting (ala moving valuable branches that @markyscott has shown us, IIRC). But they make me wonder if the pancake nebari aren't all created separately, in another fashion and the tree is subsequently grafted atop.

What if we arranges a bunch of young seedling radially, with their roots on the outside perimeter and apices bent skyward in the center, all nailed to a board to not only keep them in position, of course (analogous to the popular wire-frame tridents), but to make them wavy so that the fusion lines are irregular (add chopsticks to further obfuscation). After a decade, it is likely nicely fused into a pancake. Now Ebihara's grafting skill enters, stage left.

... suppose?
When you say it will take 30+ years, who's going to disprove it?

Another way it could be done is to thread a number of seedlings through a tile, have them fuse, then selectively get rid of stems as @garywood described some time ago in his blog.

Oso, you have an active imagination!!! Lol!!

No, Mr. Ebihara and his techniques are the subject of many magazine articles in Japan. Boon has visited him, and seen the works in progress. As has Jonas Duprich.

In bonsai, secrets can remain secrets for only so long. As an example, Mr.Suzuki "discovered" the decandling technique for making short needles on JBP. He tried to keep it secret for as long as he could. It was his competitive advantage. But eventually word got out. And now it's mainstream JBP tevhnique. So is Mr Ebihara's nebari development technique for Maples.

 

[Dav4]

Fwiw, I'm pretty sure that in Japan, you'll find many well developed, well branched, well ramified trees with wonderful flaring bases being grown in wooden boxes that we here in the US would have considered ready for a bonsai pot years (or decades) earlier. That pesky word 'patience' rears its ugly head again.

 

[thomas22]

I would TP. It's not balanced. There are far more roots on left one side than the other. We want the eventual nebari to be balanced also. Like these.
View attachment 129292

I admire the technique and patients but for my taste this pancake look in this pic are too much of a good thing. It reminds me of a women with big fake boobs. They look good up to a certain size but if they get too big they look unnatural and silly. I do think the method is awesome I just would stop short of the trees in the pic.

 

[iant]

Scott,
Do you feel like there was any progress in the root growth over the last 2 years? It's hard to tell from the photos.
I think that you have to have canopy growth and trunk thickening to get significant root growth. If this tree had grown from a seedling to the current trunk thickness while through a tile or on a board it'd be a different story. It doesn't look like you have any big sacrifices going and I think without large canopy growth you can't expect much to be happening down low.
Ian

 

[markyscott]

Scott,
Do you feel like there was any progress in the root growth over the last 2 years? It's hard to tell from the photos.
I think that you have to have canopy growth and trunk thickening to get significant root growth. If this tree had grown from a seedling to the current trunk thickness while through a tile or on a board it'd be a different story. It doesn't look like you have any big sacrifices going and I think without large canopy growth you can't expect much to be happening down low.
Ian

Ian - I don't feel as though there has been significant widening of the nebari to this point. But I haven't given up yet, so we'll see. I think I need more root growth than I saw this last go around. I'm hoping the coarser soil helps address some of that, but we'll see.

 

[0soyoung]

Oso, you have an active imagination!!! Lol!!

It doesn't seem to take much imagination at all with this example

 

[Adair M]

It doesn't seem to take much imagination at all with this example

No, I was saying that you're imagining Enihara withholding his secrets. The man worked quietly pretty much by himself for decades before he felt his trees were ready to be shown. Once he did, his trees created a sensation, and he shared his techniques.

And, your example is of a Japanese Maple. They grow much slower than tridents. Their roots are much less vigorous, so they take longer than tridents.

Actually, the easiest way to start one of these pancake nebari projects is to start with an air layer. That way all your roots start at the same level. Easy to screw it to the board, too.

 

[0soyoung]

The man worked quietly pretty much by himself for decades before he felt his trees were ready to be shown. Once he did, his trees created a sensation, and he shared his techniques.

Yes. Nikola Tesla was a similar genius hermit and died a penniless pauper. Westinghouse and Edison (GE) revealed just enough to get patent protection and started commercial enterprises to capitalize on their knowledge.

Actually, the easiest way to start one of these pancake nebari projects is to start with an air layer

Yes, I know. But I cannot help but suspect that some key element(s) is (are) missing.

You and Scott have been at the 'full Ebihara' for three years or more and getting nothing at all remotely like a pancake. I grew an acer palmatum in a plastic pot of sticky potting soil for three years (no board, no screws/nails) before I put it in Turface MVP - my tree has some basal flare (in other words, I think it reasonable to expect some rapid initial progress).

 

[Adair M]

Ah. "I think it reasonable to expect some rapid initial progress".

There's the rub. I believe it still takes a long, long time.

I'll be at Boon's next week and ask him how long it takes. Unless Scott chimes in. He's at Boon's now!