How to improve!

[ScaryBonsai19]

How can i improve the look of this Japanese maple acre palmatum?
New to all this really

 

[Gabler]

Here's a rough illustration of what I'd do if that were my tree. There are other options, and I'm also doing this with a 2D image, so take it with a grain of salt.

The green lines represent safe chops. Each will leave ample room for a little bit of dieback. The top right green chop will produce your new leader. The bottom left green chop is intended to produce a new branch from the crotch. Later, you would remove the stub and use the new branch. The yellow chop does not leave room for dieback, so make it only if you are certain the tree is healthy and growing fast. Use plenty of sealant. Leave a big stub if you are unsure and reduce it later. The red represents future rootwork. Wait until early spring. When you do, remove everything below those exposed surface roots and plant the tree much deeper in the pot. In addition, tilt the tree a little bit in the direction of the blue arrow, so the trunk is emerging from the soil at an angle.

Another option would be to keep the left trunk and chop off the right. I would cut the left trunk down to about the height of the yellow line in the drawing above. I see only one node, however, so you wouldn't get many branches. With the right trunk, you have two nodes in the same amount of space.

 

[pandacular]

To me, the standout problem with this tree is the roots. Next repotting season (just before the tree starts growing generally), I would repot it with a focus on working on the roots. It should go in a substantially deeper pot so all the roots are covered, basically up to the base of the smaller trunk. The large roots will want to be cut back, though it may take several repots to get there, as you can only remove so many roots at once.

Actually, the roots are distracting enough that I would almost certainly do a ground layer and start them over completely.

I also generally agree with the suggestions made above, but would prioritize getting the roots in order first personally.

 

[Shibui]

I assume the 48cm is the height. Not that it really matters as it is proportion we are after not specific height and spread.

To work out what to do to improve we need to understand what faults this tree has:

• Lack of taper: All trunks and branches are of similar thickness from ground to top - typical of rapidly grown stock but not very attractive as bonsai. The only way I know of to improve taper is to chop and grow replacement leader. It will be taking the tree way back and will probably take another 5-8 years of development to do it well.
• Long internodes: Again, typical of quick grown JM. New shoots can only grow from nodes of from shoots grafted onto branches between nodes. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get well behaved shoots on JM. If you can manage to get trunks and branches with shorter internodes you have much more opportunity to develop branching and ramification. The suggestion would, again be to chop and regrow trunks and branches more carefully.
• Movement: The smaller trunk has very slight bend. Larger trunk and it's branch are essentially straight and therefore uninteresting. Very difficult to bend these now they are this thick. Chop and regrow would give opportunity to get some bends.
• Nebari: Good, even, spreading roots is very important, especially on JM. This tree has roots typical of trees that have not had early intervention. Occasionally you can find a better root spread under the higher ones but those upper roots may have already thickened the trunk so removing them will likely show inverse taper on the lower trunk. Nebari is probably the quickest and easiest to fix by layering the trunk just above current roots.

All in all there's a lot to do to transform this tree into a really great bonsai.

However, if you are happy to have a less than perfect JM bonsai or don't want to commit to going way back to start the road to greatness you could try to overlook some or all of it's faults and enjoy it as it is.

 

[dbonsaiw]

Great options and explanation provided. So much of bonsai is subjective and our ultimate vision for a tree will differ. With this tree, you could do anything from refining it using its current structure to using it as the first section of tree with extreme cuts and ground layer to growing the tree out further and everything in between. Question for you is what kind of “improvement” are you looking for (sometimes a difficult question to answer as a newbie). As a general matter, the more refinement you are hoping to achieve will translate into longer periods of development during which time the tree will be in alternating states of being overgrown and being chopped up. Also, the larger you want the base to be from where it is currently, the longer the tree will need to grow to achieve this girth.