Japanese maple chopping advice

[KennedyMarx]

Last year I bought this landscape coral bark Japanese maple. I planned on trunk chopping, but I tried to make a couple air layers first. Both failed and I figured it was too late in the year to chop the trunk.

So this year in ready to chop it down, but I'm not sure about the timing. It's already leafed out on most of the branches. I have Peter Adam's Bonsai with Japanese Maples book, but in the descriptions of trunk building he didn't make any concrete note of the timing.

Should I chop now or wait until it's full leafed out? Try to push some lower growth and chop it to that?

I plan on keeping it in the nursery pot to develop for another year or two. Right now it's about four or five feet tall. The trunk is about two inches so I'm aiming to have a finished height of maybe eight to ten inches.

 

[markyscott]

Timing of your chop - like many things in life - depends...

• One option is to time the chop for the spring push - so early spring as the buds swell. That's February here in Houston. At this time, the roots are at maximum storage capacity. When you prune, all that food is going to look for buds to expand, and the growth will be explosive, coarse, and with long internodes. This is exactly what you want if you are looking to develop the next section of trunk, the portion between branch 1 and branch 2, and will give you the most rapid development.
• Another option is to perform the operation after the leaves have opened, from the time extension has begun to the time when the leaves have hardened off. If you do it at this time the trees energy will be variably depleted as your tree will have spent a great deal of food (energy) to produce all those new leaves and shoots. This is not conducive to developing a new leader unless you want a weak one with close internodes, such as if you want to develop a new apex at the top of tree. It is also preferable for trying to get buds to break for new branches on fast growing trees, because the new growth will be more refined with closer internodes.

Al has a great resource on this site for this.

 

[Eric Group]

Last year I bought this landscape coral bark Japanese maple. I planned on trunk chopping, but I tried to make a couple air layers first. Both failed and I figured it was too late in the year to chop the trunk.

So this year in ready to chop it down, but I'm not sure about the timing. It's already leafed out on most of the branches. I have Peter Adam's Bonsai with Japanese Maples book, but in the descriptions of trunk building he didn't make any concrete note of the timing.

Should I chop now or wait until it's full leafed out? Try to push some lower growth and chop it to that?

I plan on keeping it in the nursery pot to develop for another year or two. Right now it's about four or five feet tall. The trunk is about two inches so I'm aiming to have a finished height of maybe eight to ten inches.

Is there a graft down there? Be careful of that, you could wind up with just the root stock left!

You can chop now, as Marky said you might not get quite the explosive growth you'd get if you did it before leaf break, but it should be fine...

Surprised the layers didn't make it, but take the branches you remove with the chop, bust them down to a bunch of cuttings, use hormone and stick them in pots of perlite, water frequently and I bet you will be surprised by how many turn into trees!

Good luck!

 

[LanceMac10]

Last year I bought this landscape coral bark Japanese maple. I planned on trunk chopping, but I tried to make a couple air layers first. Both failed and I figured it was too late in the year to chop the trunk.

So this year in ready to chop it down, but I'm not sure about the timing. It's already leafed out on most of the branches. I have Peter Adam's Bonsai with Japanese Maples book, but in the descriptions of trunk building he didn't make any concrete note of the timing.

Should I chop now or wait until it's full leafed out? Try to push some lower growth and chop it to that?

I plan on keeping it in the nursery pot to develop for another year or two. Right now it's about four or five feet tall. The trunk is about two inches so I'm aiming to have a finished height of maybe eight to ten inches.

I have one of these as well. I was planning some air-layers next year. Do you think your layers failed due to something you did, or do you suspect that they may not have strong roots?
New England Bonsai Gardens usually has some small ones every year that they grow from cuttings. Of course, it's a bonsai nursery with many greenhouses, a little edge that most people don't have!

Watch out if it's grafted you don't chop too low like Eric suggested. And wait until next winter for any chops you have in mind. Here is a picture of a shoot of mine, (love the twig coloration!!), I consider this too late to chop, of course, it's grafted, so that's why I would like to try some layers on it.




Some Baltic Porter....9%avb....I drink a couple before chopping....seems to make the decision process a little easier!!

 

[PierreR]

Amen to the Porter! My paranoia of when to chop is driving me to drink as well!

 

[AlainK]

I've never air-layered a 'Sango Kaku' myself, but it can be done. Look at this article on Jonas Dupuich's (excellent) blog:

https://bonsaitonight.com/2010/04/13/repotting-a-japanese-maple/

 

[KennedyMarx]

So, I chopped this one down. I left a lot more trunk than I anticipated on using, in case of die back. It came back very strongly. It had a lot of fertilizer on the soil surface, but I applied some teabags after chopping in addition to a couple doses of liquid fertilizer.

It was allowed to grow up until now, but I need to reduce the branches to two per node to avoid getting any swelling issues. Next spring I plan on chopping it a bit lower and using one of these new branches as a sacrifice to build the next section of trunk.

 

[barrosinc]

did you chop below the graft?

 

[Vin]

I've never air-layered a 'Sango Kaku' myself, but it can be done. Look at this article on Jonas Dupuich's (excellent) blog:

https://bonsaitonight.com/2010/04/13/repotting-a-japanese-maple/

I like how he states at the end: "If Jeff continues the good work for another 30 years, he may end up with something outstanding like the tree below." I'll be staring at tree roots from the underside in 30 years.

 

[Smoke]

Looks like you are well on your way here. Thats great, because I feel that the best way to improve in the hobby is to make decisions and do the work. If it dies, thats life, or death depending on how you look at it, but things are learned and that becomes knowledge. Knowledge is nothing more than several failures, to the point that when it happens to others you have "knowledge" of why.

 

[KennedyMarx]

did you chop below the graft?

There's no visible graft on the trunk, but all of the special cultivars of maple that I've seen at nurseries have been crafted though, so if there is one it's really close to the base. It would probably be obvious to more experienced people than to someone like myself.

 

[KennedyMarx]

Looks like you are well on your way here. Thats great, because I feel that the best way to improve in the hobby is to make decisions and do the work. If it dies, thats life, or death depending on how you look at it, but things are learned and that becomes knowledge. Knowledge is nothing more than several failures, to the point that when it happens to others you have "knowledge" of why.

That's pretty much why I went for it. Aside from being sick to death of the damned wind blowing it over.

It was a calculated risk. I knew it wouldn't kill it, at least that's what I was betting on. I regret not chopping it a few inches lower. At least now I have a better idea of how much dieback to expect on a healthy Japanese maple.

 

[petegreg]

I hope I'm not right. But the new shoots are so green...

Looking at the very first picture, isn't this graft unit?

 

[KennedyMarx]

That spot is a little more grey, but there were a couple other spots like that on the trunk as well. The tree kept getting blown over last year and it smashed the edge of my benches several times in about the same area.

When the leaves emerged after chopping it down they had a nice tint on the edges:



Here is a pic of the leaves before it got chopped:



Those also had a tint on the edges when they first emerged, but turned completely green later.

 

[petegreg]

These pictures look good. Sorry.

 

[KennedyMarx]

No need to apologize. No offense taken.

All my pictures are taken with an iPhone 5S. I think they come out pretty good for a phone camera. Sometimes I turn up the contrast slightly, but otherwise I don't touch them up.

 

[coh]

Hard to say if that is sango kaku or understock. Vigorous new growth after a chop can often look different than mature growth. What I can say is that my sango kaku has leaf petioles that are quite red, though the youngest branches (this season's growth) can be rather green.

Regarding the issue of air layering this variety, I have one that I air layered. This is its first full season on its own roots, so I can't speak about the long term success...but so far, it looks about the same in terms of vigor as it did on the understock. It was not an easy layer, though, as it took 2 seasons. I started it in June 2014, but only a few roots had grown by the fall so I left it on through the winter. In the spring of 2015 I had to recut the layer as there was significant bridging of the cambium. I then got decent new root growth and was able to separate it in September 2015. So far, so good...maybe I'll have something decent in 30 years.

 

[KennedyMarx]

I attempted two air layers last year. One I separated the cambium completely and one I left a small sliver of bark/cambium connecting the top and bottom. Both of them calloused over. They were the first layers I've ever attempted so I couldn't form much of an opinion on whether they're hard to layer or my technique was faulty. I assumed the latter.

 

[LanceMac10]

That spot is a little more grey, but there were a couple other spots like that on the trunk as well. The tree kept getting blown over last year and it smashed the edge of my benches several times in about the same area.

When the leaves emerged after chopping it down they had a nice tint on the edges:

View attachment 107209

Here is a pic of the leaves before it got chopped:

View attachment 107210

Those also had a tint on the edges when they first emerged, but turned completely green later.

Graft right there at the base as far as I can tell. Coral bark comes in really lime green. In good sun the petioles will redden up quickly. The underside will stay pretty green, as with most JMs. Leaves have a very slight orange-red tinge at the edge as they emerge, as you mentioned. Much less than most JM's have, in my opinion. Go completely green rapidly. You'll notice in my post earlier, year old growth becomes quite red. Good luck!

Shatner out!!

 

[KennedyMarx]

I think you're right. The base has some swelling. It looks a bit odd from some angles. After the chop, I had one bud start to appear near the nebari, but nothing came from it.