Acer Negundo (Boxelder Maple) #1

[Orion_metalhead]

Fertilized and reduced leaflets to 2 per petiole where I could.

 

[Ininaatigoons]

Looking good!

 

[NJtsr95]

Hello! Inspired by this post and seeing the Boxelder seedlings frequently along the river shore I frequently hike for photos, LSS theres a peninsula spit of lowland in the river. Floods frequently (most definitely all these boxelders will be dead by next week given rainfall on way) only trees surviving on the high point of the spit is P. occidentalis.

New Member here (not necessarily new to Bonsai but to the forums here, please advise if i should move this to own thread). I’m curious if you could advise given personal exp. With this species what you or other viewers who are more veteran than me would recommend I do here.

I collected these seedlings yesterday, they’re between about 2”-8ish” tall. I saw the one with the pre curved, nearly complete curled “trunk” and couldnt resist the idea of trying to make a forest grouping of these as I had a few extra 9” training pots laying around.

My concern is the growth rate, are these just going to girdle eachother immediately with this spacing? Some species are weird in being slow the first year and then extremely fast for years after. I trimmed off some of the larger lower leaves as they were submerged in the last high water flood and partially rotted/had nasty algal film on them. Completely rinsed them off with exception of rootball which i left some of the “native” dirt immediately around roots. Even though this is considered a “junk” tree and literally there were dozens more of these seedlings in a relatively small area.

I would like to see if its possible to control the growth rate a bit more aggressively considering their notorious ability to spread suckers everywhere and resprout, without being worried about killing it. So ive also got several pre bonsai conventional species in growing pots that i kinda want to test out the ramification techniques on the A. Negundo first so if I kill it I wont feel so bad.

But i’d still prefer to avoid that if possible, if you guys would recommend it, I could move them into larger/wider growing pots/“self watering” planters or purchase a wider training pot. Thanks for any advice and loved this whole thread of the progression of the tree! Again will move post to appropriate thread or make own if req. Figured a new poster making a thread about a species almost nobody even thinks about trying would get no notice and just trying to reach out to community more. Thanks!

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Hi. Those look like acer rubrum to me.

Ill respond in length later

 

[NJtsr95]

Hi. Those look like acer rubrum to me.

Ill respond in length later

Hello. While it’s possible, and I’m not entirely sure myself and my plant ID app says Rubrum as well, the same app also sometimes mis-identifies my P. rigida as P. Thunbergii (JBP) and I could not find any info online on distinguishing negundo vs rubrum specifically in the sapling stage.

The reason I’m convinced it’s negundo is because they were all growing on the spit of land in the lower floodplain and all the massive branches and trunks hanging over the river directly above this spit of land (which im positive is flooded right now, NJ zone 7a) are all A. negundo and the tree branches directly above where these seedlings sprouted were expressly A. Negundo and the tree directly above where I collected this was a Negundo producing a prolific Samara seed crop. I collected some to experiment with later. There are A. Rubrum in the area and sure some seeds could have been deposited from somewheres upriver, but I didnt see any directly along the riverbank, usually a bit further uphill in the riparian zone. Directly along the riverbank the main species in this Wildlife Area was dominant A. negundo and P. Occidentalis. And of course invasive garbage like Black locust mixed in and also a bit further uphill.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Send a close up photo of a few leaves.

 

[NJtsr95]

Here is what I got. For context here is also is cutting of a growth shoot from a known juvenile red maple. It’s not a 100% comparison because it was from a young tree but which was about 6-8’ tall (the leading shoot) vs a tiny seedling. It’s also a bit dessicated as ive just recently gotten an appropriate humidity chamber setup for the cuttings. I kind of see a bit of a difference and more branching on what I’ve assumed to be the Negundo but perhaps it’ll just take time for mature leaves to really tell.

 

[NJtsr95]

Something that appears to be different to me is a darker red petiole on the known Red Maple cutting (last pic) and I can more clearly make out 3 prominent lobes/veins on the juvenile Rubrum shoot. The leaves on the saplings I collected seem to have only one prominent leading vein with more nebulous lobes on many of the leaves. If im wrong I’m definitely willing to admit that and make it a Red maple forest instead. But I admit i cant find a lot of images or info on distinguishing them at this seedling stage. Odd and frustrating lack of info considering prominence of maples and how widely cultivated it once was.

I appreciate your time and patience btw

 

[Orion_metalhead]

These are all red maple to my eyes. The size of the claimed negundo sapling should by now have close to mature leafs. After two sets of leaves, boxelder maples begin to separate to the characteristic three-leafs/petiole mature leaves. If you look at my first post which is a one year old seedling, the leaves have already taken mature form.

Yours look like a natural cross of red maple and silver maple or just a variety of red maple. These are all very common in NJ. If these were collected anywhere near river rd in piscataway or near rutgers, its most likely a red maple cross. If you want to know for sure, fertilize heavily and let grow out to six or seven pairs of leaves. If you arent getting three or five leaflets per petiole its not negundo.

where are you keeping these? it looks like inside. Death sentence. Get em outside.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Acer Negundo examples of young leaves including those without partition yet:



Acer Rubrum:


Acer Saccharinum (Silver Maple)

 

[NJtsr95]

So I just left them alone to grow larger leaves to tell for sure. Here is the update, as promised I am admitting, I was wrong and they’re all looking like Red Maple to me besides maybe the one back middle of pot towards the window which is possibly a Silver Maple? The samaras I collected from the trees directly above these are definitely Boxelder Maple, however and hopefully are germinating cold strat in the fridge alone with some P rigida seeds collected from pinecones. You were close btw but the source wasnt the Raritan by New Brunswick, but the South Branch just north of the confluence along the northern banks along the river by Duke Island park. For whatever reason (I imagine spread from the raritan post WWII suburbs nearby) the entire bank of the river there has the highest density of Boxelder Maple that Ive personally ever seen along any NJ rivers. But yes I was wrong!

Some random garbage is also sprouting in the pot. Likely took a hitchhike on the rootballs which i didnt knock all the soil off of. Out of curiosity waiting to see what it is. Probably a grass and some other weed.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Why do you have them inside? Put them outside in a shaded spot. You can not keep these long term inside.

 

[NJtsr95]

Why do you have them inside? Put them outside in a shaded spot. You can not keep these long term inside.

I do not have a yard… They don’t usually care about putting stuff outside in winter as their hideous overly pruned topiaries and badly planted birch trees next to sidewalk which are already dying stop growing. The landscapers are horrible and I dont trust them to not blow dead leaves and mulch covered in chemicals all over the trees. I plan to move them outside to overwinter when theyre a bit bigger OR if my indoor overwinter attempt fails.

We will see. I am attempting an experiment with the plant collection. I’ve segregated all the tropicals like monstera, corn plants, yucca, ponytail, crassula, and the cuttings/propagation chamber into a seperate room. In the living room I’ve moved the natives and non-native temperates. Humidity locally controlled and i run an oscillating fan on high 50% each room to keep air movement and simulate wind. Not to mention i use the fact these racks are wobbly to my advantage as i constantly bump into them and give the trunks and branches a good flex from time to time.

In summer ive given them 14 hours of full spectrum light, starting next week thru sept im reducing to 12, i also give the natives/tree species “pink” supplementary light AND a combination of 365nm AND 400nm longwave UV (or “blacklight”) set up to come on exactly at sunrise and turn off at sunset. With my thesis being that supplementary longwave UV-A can potentially alleviate some of the UV loss thru the windowpanes and not being outside in direct sun. All the natives/bonsai (besides these red maples which were collected about a month ago) have been in my hands for about 80 days now and I dare say its possibly working to an extent?

Even the bald cypress looks reasonably happy, trunk thickened from about a pencil to sharpie and grew so fast i had to give it another foot of headroom as it grew too close to light and sunburned itself! I have ability to bring temps down to nearly outside level along this wall, in terms of overwintering. I could also deploy a tent to create a microclimate where the windows and the racks could be enclosed. But maybe not necessary.

I think bonsai is as much a science as it is art and nature and ive always been unable to resist experimenting what is possible, not necessary what is easiest, smartest, or frankly most sane.

I know these trees aren’t “bonsai” technically because I havent pruned or wired anything, yet. I do not want to excessively stress the trees, so I’m going to wait until fall colors arrive and leaves drop on the deciduous species to signify successful dormancy and then give them some light pruning or cuttings if the leaves do drop and they go dormant. For the record I do not have any forced air anything, so i have control over humidity to a far greater extent than most in this climate. Having only 600sq ft to my name works in my favor only in being able to easily and somewhat affordably (not the rent but you get idea) control the temps and humidity vs if i tried this in a large suburban mcmansion with 20ft tall ceilings. The obvious answer there would be to put them out on the deck or whatever.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Thats a lot of effort when they can just be outside. LOL. If you want me to overwinter any of the natives with my trees, let me know. Im sure we can work something out.

How do you plan to overwinter inside?

 

[NJtsr95]

Thats a lot of effort when they can just be outside. LOL. If you want me to overwinter any of the natives with my trees, let me know. Im sure we can work something out.

Lol definitely. One of my other concerns is that I only have a WNW and ESE facing walls to put the trees against in the mulch beds. Both sides are completely exposed because of their insistance that a full bed of mulch completely bare of any vegetation besides a hideous square topiary by the doors “looks good” to property management companies i guess. So the wind is quite strong from both directions during the winter and I am worried about them falling over or dying from the rootball being exposed or hard frozen from the strong winds.

But despite trying a bit of an experiment here (ill prob make a post about it so im not bringing all this OT mess in your boxelder thread, sry abt that again lol) and get dumped all over, because rightfully a lot of people buy a juniper or something and stick it on their windowsill in their home set to 72F and 30% humidity year round and then wonder why it dies the next year).

But that said im not intending to kill any trees, and if any grow too large, or in over my head come fall/winter, I just might take you up on that offer, or anyone else nearby too. Honestly if I really screw this up and have a lot of them struggling, if you or someone offers to overwinter I’d be fine if u wanted to keep the tree if youve got the space or if youd want to add it to your collection, of course. But I appreciate the concern and possible offer.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

I dont want your trees, just an offer of assistance to someone local.

 

[Orion_metalhead]

End of year. Did alright. It looks primed for a good leaf out next year with lots of buds all over the tree. Bark is looking nice as well. Quite a bit corky actually. I dont know if thats normal or not. I will do a gentle repot next year into this other pot I have which is a little smaller and shallower which I think will help restrain growth and size. Color seems nice to my eyes too for now, as the olive tones match the uncorky twiggy 1-2yr growth. It will also let the nebari push up easier for a nicer display.

Before:


After with a little cleanup and a reduction in apex.


More photos.