Sean’s Japanese Maples

[SeanS]

Started transplanting my JM seedlings today, got 35 done. Only ~200 more to go!

TAP ROOTS BE GONE!

 

[JDiaz]

appreciate this thread!!

 

[SeanS]

My biggest JM has started leafing out and I’ve been staring at it for ages trying to decide my options

I was planning on using the shoot circled in green as my next section of trunk. However now I’m unsure of the movement of the section of the current leader directly below the shoot. The leader does have slightly better movement between the proposed shoots and the main trunk than the photos portray

My ideas are:
1. Use the green circled shoot and grow it back towards the right, with the eventual apex to the right of the base of the tree.
2. Use the set of buds one node lower (red circle), also moving towards the right.
3. Use red buds with leader moving to the left
4. Grow a completely new leader from the buds circled in blue.

Opinions?

I’m planning on growing a small sub-trunk with the shoot that’s started extending on the right from the base of the tree to build branching in the lower right section that currently doesn’t have any branching.

 

[SeanS]

1



2



3



4

 

[Hack Yeah!]

I like 4 the best, is there any give in that upper right branch, could it bend up enough to be the new leader?

 

[Pitoon]

Great thread! Looking forward to seeing your progress with the air layers.

 

[Colorado]

I think #3 is the best trunk line. A really nice one to be sure!

To me, it needs to come back to the left. And I agree that with #1 the straight section is too long.

Loving this thread!

 

[Moridin]

#3 as well in my opinion

 

[SeanS]

Here’s a ROR I started late last year with one of my first successful JM cuttings. Today it finally popped a bud so I went ahead and repotted it to have a look at the roots and rearrange them if necessary




Root growth is looking good, they’ve grown out the bottom of the foil quite well for a tiny cutting that I only rooted in December 2020. The roots have multiplied and started to conform to the shape of the rock


Wrapped back up and potted into my standard crushed LECA/coco peat mix





The @Shibui foil method is a winner!

 

[Pitoon]

Lol, just realized who you are on Instagram.

 

[SeanS]

Seedlings

 

[dbonsaiw]

Love the seedlings. I have a bunch of samaras stratifying in my fridge - fingers crossed. What's your secret on getting so many to germinate?

 

[Stella]

These look so good. Lookin forward to Following the progression

 

[Pixar]

any more photos

 

[Stella]

Where did you get the seeds?

 

[SeanS]

Where did you get the seeds?

I collected them from some large JMs

 

[SeanS]

Thread to document some of my Japanese maple projects.

is an air layer off one of my bigger JMs that I separated last November. It’s a tall slender twin trunk. It was little more than 2 long twigs last August. Now it’s at least thickened up to be 2 small sticks in a pot

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When I separated the layer November 2020

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I did the initial styling in our fall in June. Today I repotted.

Start of the repot

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Nice little nebari is starting to form. Any heavy, crossing or misdirected roots were cut off. Bottom of the football was cut flat under the trunk.

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Settled in and watered. This season I’ll start the primaries and next section of each trunk. I plan for this tree to be remain somewhat slender and have elegant upward reaching branches. I imagine it’s a tree right at the edge of a forest so it’s found a spot where it can reach up and out towards the sunlight from under some large hinokis or cryptomeria.

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Some trees for inspiration (props to @kokufu_maples on IG)

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Current state of this tree. I’ve wired up the next section of trunk on both the main and secondary trunks and wired a new few shoot.

 

[SeanS]

Here’s another funky little maple I layered last season off the top of another bonsai. I repotted it 3 weeks ago. Buds are slowly opening and one has already extended. I think I may have lost the upper right branch as the buds dried up and fell off over winter. The long branch off the back is a sacrifice. Not sure if I’ll use that overly long lower left branch, could make an interesting little tree with it but I’m unsure if cutting it off and starting it over might be better in the long run?

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The top half of this little tree died back, as well as the one side of the main lower branch. The 2 little shoots at the top of the tree leafed out in spring, but then slowly died, along with the rest of the trunk section. I removed the dead bits last weekend and grafted a shoot onto the sacrifice branch which was on the back side of the initial design to create a new trunkline. A little bud has also started to sprout on the lower branch where the one side died, so I should be able to add a bifurcation to the main branch again if it starts to grow. I'm learning to adapt to changes and make adjustments to plans depending on what a plant gives me (or takes away).


The parts that died



The grafted shoot has started to extend so I'm hoping the graft will take. Looking at the tree now I probably should have made the graft slightly lower, but alas.



The wound where the dead trunk section was removed. The cut paste has already started to crack.



New bud between the 2nd and 3rd wraps of wire

 

[Yamabudoudanshi]

Following this one too!

 

[SeanS]

Unfortunately some of my JMs aren't doing quite as well as my tridents in my Trident projects thread. I've been battling fungal issues for the second season running now. Since moving to my new house at the beginning of December and doing almost weekly mancozeb treatments I seem to be taking control of the situation, although some trees still show signs of disease on any new growth that emerges. Some trees almost fully defoliated themselves due to fungus, but most have put out nice fresh canopies once again. It's been an incredibly wet spring and early summer, and the tight confines of my previous house's garden was a breeding ground for fungus. The new garden and bonsai area is A LOT bigger and has amazing air flow and sun, so I'm hoping things will get better as the season progresses.

Here's my partially shaded JM bench. It gets sun from 5am until about 13:30, then full shade from the high boundary wall behind it. I've put a bit of shade net up for the midday sun. I only managed to get the shade cloth up over the weekend and some of my seedlings are showing some sunburn from the week of full midday sun between finishing my new benches in the new house and getting the shade cloth up. Photo taken at 12:52 today.



Here' are my seedlings sown in spring. Some are wired up and individually potted up, while I have 2 flats full of seedlings that I plan to sell off next winter. JMs are like gold here in South Africa.




3 future exposed root seedlings. They are all the same age. The tallest one is the strongest growing seedling out of the lot. I got lucky when I selected that one as an exposed root project. The tubes are filled with coars crushed LECA and the roots are already growing out of the bottom of the pot.