19Mateo83
Masterpiece
I have 40 or so and can’t give them away…. That’s why they suck 
Tell me why native silver maple sucks?
- Thread starter MMJNICE
- Start date
Brian Van Fleet
Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Keep this thread updated and show us all why they don’t.
Joelshack2362
Mame
It sucks because you believe it sucks.
Gabler
Masterpiece
So I've told to give up on native silver maple because the"1. leaves are to big" 2. "The leaf posts are too long". 3. "The wood is too soft." So tell me a new reason because with very little effort I got the leaves under 4" most of which are around 2 to 3 inches long some even smaller around an inch. I've haven't been able to kill one yet.. the roots form amazing root spreads in very little time because of the crazy vigorous nature of the Species. The petals are on this example are all about 2 inches or so as well.. and these are saplings, Imagine if this was a well Ramified older tree. Btw I found four saplings and tied them together to form a clump. I really think more people should give them a try. Yea I may be a little bit Biased because I grew up under a beautiful silver maple at the house I was raised in but still,,, they are so easy to work with give them a try.. if I'm missing a reason let me know so I can figure out how to proceed because I'm spending a fair bit of resources on them .. ohh yea... the leaves are just as pretty as any Japanese maple heheheheheheheh. At least they don't look like weed leaves like the Japanese maplesI'm joking
Leaves of three to four inches are enormous by bonsai standards. Get your biggest leaves under two inches, and then you'll have a tree that's okay for bonsai. Reduce the petioles and internodes, and then it will be good for bonsai.
That's not an admonition against growing them for fun. I'm growing a sycamore for bonsai, just to see if it can be done. The end product will likely be over four feet tall. With sacrifice branches, it's presently over nine feet tall. The leaves reduce to about three inches, so the end product needs to be huge to keep them in proportion.
As a rule of thumb, I find that if leaves are bigger than the trunk caliper, they look too far out of proportion. Maybe you have a higher tolerance than I do for large leaves. I know of plenty on here who have much less tolerance than I for large leaves.
MaciekA
Shohin
People who are illiterate in deciduous broadleaf bonsai need to stop telling beginners which trees do or don't work. We should also stop listening to them.
Talk to Andrew Robson or anyone else who really knows their broadleaf deciduous trees and they will say to keep growing silver maple. Your skills and continuous skill-building / experience-building will be the factors that actually decide if you can make a highly refined bonsai out of any tree .. not the naysayers who have never figured out how defoliation works or what the goals of root work are, etc.
Talk to Andrew Robson or anyone else who really knows their broadleaf deciduous trees and they will say to keep growing silver maple. Your skills and continuous skill-building / experience-building will be the factors that actually decide if you can make a highly refined bonsai out of any tree .. not the naysayers who have never figured out how defoliation works or what the goals of root work are, etc.
MaciekA
Shohin
I agree on "keep on". Leaf reduction is not a function of what the leaves look like in a catalog or on a hyper vigorous tree that has no ramification whatsoever -- expect big leaves in coarse-structured trees, and in fact celebrate large leaf size because it gets you quick growth of material during the trunk inflation years.
You live in the PNW so you are probably familiar with bigleaf maple. Those leaves can reduce to bonsai size in spite of the surface-level assessment of having leaves larger than dinner plates. Among BSOP members there are several bigleaf shohin floating around. I study bigleaf with Andrew Robson and at no time has he restrained my hand and said "sorry buddy, bigleaf won't work out". Same for cottonwood, which when coarse and unrestrained has leaves the size of a schoolbus. In both cases when I asked him about these species and whether we should even bother, he encouraged me and emphasized it is all about techniques. He has a variety of non-trident, non-JM maples in his garden, including ones people say not to use. There is no fear of large leaves.
I'm convinced that in maples and a lot of other deciduous broadleaf species, the reducability of foliage/internode size is almost purely function of the grower's body and brain, not the surface-level assessments of non-experts or even really genetics. Skills, experience, and technical understanding of how to ramify a root system and a canopy are more important. It becomes really obvious when you play with cuttings of a very large-leafed tree and root them in tiny volumed containers (think: those 24-slot seedling trays from the garden center). Or when just walking through a forest of bigleaf maple (or cottonwood) and observing leaf size variation on single trees with your own eyes. Ramify, constrain, and features will reduce!
Kanorin
Omono
Loved this snippet.
pandacular
Masterpiece
If I understand the process of leaf reduction correctly (probably don't!), the idea is that a certain rootmass (simplified, there's other factors) will produce a given surface area of leaves. Thus the more you ramify the branches, the more spread out that surface area is across different buds/shoots, and the smaller the leaves get. Something like that?
Gabler
Masterpiece
That's a good point, to the extent that actually happens, but everyone on this thread has said, "Give it a try." If anything, it seems to me the overall sentiment is that we should be trying lots of species to see what works. I see lots of complaints about nay-sayers, but a lot fewer actual nay-sayers.
Gabler
Masterpiece
That's my understanding. I would guess that it's probably an oversimplification of the biological processes at play, but I don't know enough botany to hazard a guess at what the process might look like at the cellular level.
Gabler
Masterpiece
That's reassuring to hear. I find my trees ramify and reduce to a point, but then I tend to hit a floor where the internodes and leaves refuse to get any smaller. When ramification and leaf reduction plateau, what do you recommend?
Deep Sea Diver
Imperial Masterpiece
imho It’s not about a tree type, leaf size, or stating and restating opinions and theory.
Its all about the hobbyist, their research, timing, continual practice, effective tactics and being open minded enough to experience the flow of each tree’s development….
…. and then understanding the evolving trade offs it will take to develop a tree(s) to achieve their maximum bonsai potential.
In other words, it’s about balancing a series of competing “goods”… the trade offs that result in the tree before you and the tree in the future.
Here’s an example of a young 1- 5 yoa Autumn Blaze forest composition. (Cuttings struck over the years to add on).
Somewhat mediocre perhaps? But a good example all the same…
So what trade offs were made to get here…?
….and what trade offs must to be made in the future to get to a place to make this composition ancient, gnarly and perhaps even dynamic?
Here’s two examples of the competing goods faced while developing this forest:
- The good that comes from pushing growth resulting in trunk girth and increased root mass (and big leaves)
vs
- The aesthetic good of keeping the leaves a reasonable size, resulting from pinch back, constraining foliar mass and minimal container size. (and less girth, root mass etc)
And…
- The good that comes from getting an ‘acceptable’ job done in the shortest time.
vs
- The good that comes from having the patience to stretch the time continuum and build the skills needed to truly emulate an ancient, gnarly tree(s).
The competing goods subtly shift over time, requiring different trade offs and experiences.
So perhaps a better question would be “What trade offs am I willing to make to get this to be a nice bonsai with smaller leaves?”
cheers
DSD sends
Its all about the hobbyist, their research, timing, continual practice, effective tactics and being open minded enough to experience the flow of each tree’s development….
…. and then understanding the evolving trade offs it will take to develop a tree(s) to achieve their maximum bonsai potential.
In other words, it’s about balancing a series of competing “goods”… the trade offs that result in the tree before you and the tree in the future.
Here’s an example of a young 1- 5 yoa Autumn Blaze forest composition. (Cuttings struck over the years to add on).
Somewhat mediocre perhaps? But a good example all the same…
So what trade offs were made to get here…?
….and what trade offs must to be made in the future to get to a place to make this composition ancient, gnarly and perhaps even dynamic?
Here’s two examples of the competing goods faced while developing this forest:
- The good that comes from pushing growth resulting in trunk girth and increased root mass (and big leaves
)vs
- The aesthetic good of keeping the leaves a reasonable size, resulting from pinch back, constraining foliar mass and minimal container size. (and less girth, root mass etc
)And…
- The good that comes from getting an ‘acceptable’ job done in the shortest time.
vs
- The good that comes from having the patience to stretch the time continuum and build the skills needed to truly emulate an ancient, gnarly tree(s).
The competing goods subtly shift over time, requiring different trade offs and experiences.
So perhaps a better question would be “What trade offs am I willing to make to get this to be a nice bonsai with smaller leaves?”
cheers
DSD sends
MaciekA
Shohin
imho It’s not about a tree type, leaf size, or stating and restating opinions and theory.
Its all about the hobbyist, their research, timing, continual practice, effective tactics and being open minded enough to experience the flow of each tree’s development….
…. and then understanding the evolving trade offs it will take to develop a tree(s) to achieve their maximum bonsai potential.
In other words, it’s about balancing a series of competing “goods”… the trade offs that result in the tree before you and the tree in the future.
Here’s an example of a young 1- 5 yoa Autumn Blaze forest composition. (Cuttings struck over the years to add on).
View attachment 503410
Somewhat mediocre perhaps? But a good example all the same…
So what trade offs were made to get here…?
….and what trade offs must to be made in the future to get to a place to make this composition ancient, gnarly and perhaps even dynamic?
Here’s two examples of the competing goods faced while developing this forest:
- The good that comes from pushing growth resulting in trunk girth and increased root mass (and big leaves
vs
- The aesthetic good of keeping the leaves a reasonable size, resulting from pinch back, constraining foliar mass and minimal container size. (and less girth, root mass etc
And…
- The good that comes from getting an ‘acceptable’ job done in the shortest time.
vs
- The good that comes from having the patience to stretch the time continuum and build the skills needed to truly emulate an ancient, gnarly tree(s).
The competing goods subtly shift over time, requiring different trade offs and experiences.
So perhaps a better question would be “What trade offs am I willing to make to get this to be a nice bonsai with smaller leaves?”
cheers
DSD sends
I really enjoyed this perspective and the framing of trade offs.
A lot of these trade offs to me appear to stem from an anticipatory envisioning of what the later result will be. I have found that the "continual practice" that you mentioned at the start of your comment is what helps me defer the rush to the result while building confidence that I can get there (through testing/learning techniques).
I've found that shortcuts are often just haste wrapped up in disguise. I can take my sweet time with the more promising material while continuously generating cuttings and doing experiments with other material of the same species. Your comment doesn't mention this explicitly, but for me it has a strong "enjoy the journey" character to it when bringing up the idea of "experiencing the flow" of development. For cottonwood at least, I had to just see what happens for a while and had to be ready to accept whatever limitations came up. Things have become much clearer over time, but most importantly, I still have my first cottonwood and didn't drop out of the game, and the goal has gradually become more ambitious.
Gabler
Masterpiece
My takeaway is that I haven't hit a floor—I've just hit a point where progress is moving more slowly and I'm getting diminishing returns for my efforts. If I'm in my 20's, I should be able to take my time over the next fifty years to continue refining the tree, but progress will continue to slow down over time as the tree gets more and more refined. Is that accurate?
Deep Sea Diver
Imperial Masterpiece
Thanks!
Some awfully good points there @MaciekA.
Bonsai flow comes in many ways for me,
- interpreting growth patterns over time
- enjoying working with a tree to grow it towards a goal, vs forcing it. (Kind of like @BobbyLane ’s “listen to the tree idea”)
- testing a new (to me) technique and having success
- understanding the trade offs in development and being able to consciously make an informed decision.
- experimenting with just about anything there is time for….
- the state of mental flow that can come with working on a project… etc
In my first couple years I specifically started the Autumn Blaze maple forest, a Crabapple forest, and number of small trees to force myself to challenge some assumptions that were widely posted at the time. It has taken years for me to appreciate the flow of each. Similar in a ways to your Cottonwood.
It took a number of years to hone this perspective, so I felt kinda wonky posting these concepts on line to one and all.
On the other hand I learned an awful lot from other folks here like @Leo in N E Illinois @Brian Van Fleet, and also Aarin Packard at PMB, just to name a couple of the many folks who have helped me put this perspective into words.
So I felt a post might help others jumpstart their learning…. as my perspective of BonsaiNut as more of a collective educational bonsai platform vice a pure social one.
Not sure why.
Trees aren’t static, they can’t be stopped from growing….given the overarching goal is to keep the tree robust and healthy within one’s other goals.…trees are continually morphing while growing.
One will always have to redevelop one’s techniques and knowledge to match the tree’s level of refinement to keep it robust and healthy while accomplishing one’s aesthetic goals.
The trees evolve and the hobbyist has to evolve their knowledge, design skills and abilities over time to match this evolution.
There are trees in a high level of refinement at PMB, but each year they continue to have robust and healthy growth.… and each year the staff and we volunteers have to work hard to achieve the desired level of aesthetic design…which constantly evolves over time until the tree’s outgrow a particular aesthetic. Then it’s time for a major redesign… slowly evolving towards a more ancient aesthetic.
So no diminishing returns. A design can only be held static for a little while until the tree grows out of it, creating new demands of the practitioner
Hope that answers the question.
cheers
DSD sends
Orion_metalhead
Masterpiece
Its all about purpose and enjoyment. Silver maples remind me of my childhood - our street was lined with them... we had a big one in the front that my dad's car door would hit every day he got home from work before the street crews chopped it down. My parents still have a HUGE one in the back. I have two of them. Would I grow more? Sure if I found a nice thick one at this point.
Ive always seen this hobby as a way to connect with the natural world around me. Thats been my purpose since day 1. The "quality potential" is less important to me than the "enjoyment potential".
Ive always seen this hobby as a way to connect with the natural world around me. Thats been my purpose since day 1. The "quality potential" is less important to me than the "enjoyment potential".
MMJNICE
Shohin
Dude that almost looks like a field maple... the leaves are really really cool. Almost like that a Specific cultivar your growing.. I just steal all my Material of plunder my or my parents yards...
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