OK, serious now...
There are four things wanted in most any bonsai. Flaring nebari, thick trunk, tapering trunk and good branch structure.
Before any maple can start its trunk management, the base of the tree must be improved. If that can't be improved then put it on the raffle table, sell it on ekk bay or similar. Take a look at the tree above. While Andrew has started to improve the trunk, the most critical part of the trunk is missing. A good flaring nebari. Now maples with a good flare but missing a good exposed root system can be added and the tree can be worked on knowing that the roots will come or be grafted later. Without the flare there is nothing but a telephone pole trunk to graft them to and that does not equate to age.
All we do in bonsai is working towards the illusion of great age, and while many conifers can be dug from the earth with great age already, deciduous trees are not as easy to come by with attributes good for bonsai. So, the illusion of age is important and flaring buttress is one of the first things that set aside one tree from another.
In my workshops I talk about visual speed. Visual speed is almost always done from the bottom up. If while walking at the mall and a pretty girl in a skirt catches your eye, the "view" starts and runs up the entire body in a glance. Lets talk about some of the things that can ruin the image. In the perfect girl, the body is shaped like a Hogarth curve. This is one of the simplist yet most beautiful lines the eye can see. The human mind is constantly on the lookout for the Hogarth curve. It is primal and part of the DNA of the male to find the best Hogarth curve for procreation. Simple as that.
What may upset the apple cart? What if moving up the visual and the person has knobby knees, pigeon toed or bow legged might be reason that the eyes would be averted. Maybe the person is pear shaped, missing an arm or is in a cast. All of these things break the visual speed of the look. In trees the same thing happens. Trunks are looked at first at the root base, flared and anchored, the trunk moving skyward with subtle taper or dramatic taper and writhing movement, maybe a Hogarth curve. The first branch is in proportion to the tapering trunk and the correct distance from the soil, maybe fitting the fibonacci sequence or "Golden Mean". Branches will taper also and the subsequent branches will move up the trunk diminishing as it moves vertically. The top or apex will finish over the root base or away from the roots for a slanting tree.
In a recent conversation with Ted Matson, we compared notes on my take of visual speed and his take on "the five qualities of a tree". They are:
1. movement (no straight lines)
2. taper
3. segments
4. compression
5. ramification.
Segments has to do with directional changes at the segments while compression has to do with the segments getting smaller to the tip of the trunk or branch. As you see we both agree that the five qualities are contained in visual speed. When I work on a maple I must place it in a box and grow it for a few years just to make sure the plant is healthy. Techniques are used to improve the look of the buttress either by using a plate under the roots or affixing the tree solidly to the bottom of the box, either way keeping the tree tied firmly and not allowing the trunk to push away from the surface is critical.
Working towards this kinda flare is bold and masculine and powerful. In the end it will provide a solid foundation to the canopy of a tree. It will convey great age and power.
This claw is more of a problem. The OP tree is much like this base in that it has some flare and then turns into a ball. The ball will have to be removed and then a base started over before work can even begin on the top. This could take 5 to 7 years just to get to that point. This claw goes right into the soil having very large roots that will very difficult to put into an appropriate pot.
Ground growing maples. Tridents are especially tricky because they grow so hard. A couple years in the ground can be equal to ten years or more in a pot or box. There problems with ground growing too. the grower has to be especially skilled at bonsai and techniques to apply the correct grow out methods keeping the plant desirable. This is an example of, grow chop, grow, chop prune chop......... The places where branches are allowed to grow to make girth will also add girth to the trunk and the intersections of the branches. More branches means more growth but also ugly trunks. Rapant growth down below means large unruley roots that tend to grow from the trunk and grow unchecked increasing in size to nearly half the trunk diameter in a couple growing seasons. Keeping the roots in check means stopping the growing process and means much stopping and starting over the years creating nothing.
Bonsai is no picnick. There are few shortcuts except time and skill.
This is a tall trident grown by semi yearly chopping and regrowing with terrible segmentation. I dug this tree from a field growing enterprise. I have been growing this in a box on the ground allowing it to escape keeping large roots deep which can be cut off. The flare is really much better and the trunk is now smoothing out from the lumps and bulges. Still a long ways to go, but some branch structure will be introduced on the lower third this year.
This trunk is thirty inches tall and five inches across and seven inches across at the soil flare.
Hope this helps in your endeavors.
