Blog Pages
Incremental Progress – Trident Maples
If you want to have really good deciduous trees and can’t stand the thought of compromise, then you’ll most likely be spending 20-30 years carefully developing trees from scratch. It’s not easy and I can’t say I’ve mastered all the elements, perhaps half of them if I’m lucky. But, if you don’t try you can’t succeed.
Inspired by some of the most amazing stories of Maples in Japan I’ve tried my hand at developing more than a few deciduous trees from scratch over the last ten years. Some success, some utter failure and some modest progress is what I have to show for it. But, the value of the failures is possibly greater than the value of the successes if only because they have taught me so many of the mistakes to avoid in developing these kind of trees. To get an idea of what there is to strive toward check out this post on BonsaiTonight.com
Starting about 7 years ago I have made some progress on a few of the trident maples in my original batch of seedlings. Meanwhile, I started a second batch of tridents last year; this time with the intention of growing many more of them to maturity than the first time around. The trees in the first batch are coming along, each at their own pace. Here’s one example:
June 2013, after a partial defoliation and wiring. The sacrifice branch has been established at the back.
January 2015, after one year planted in my yard. The trunk more than tripled in diameter.
March 2015 – as the buds are swelling and the tree is starting to grow I made a wedge cut to partially separate the sacrifice branch. This is a technique that I first saw in the yard of Mr. Ebihara.
A link to the Bonsai Tonight entry on Ebihara’s maples; about half way down there are a couple good images that Jonas took of some of the sacrifice removal techniques that he and Ooishi developed and used.
Late April 2015, I defoliated the finished branching and left the sacrifice to continue growing.
January 2016 Dug up and potted into a bonsai container. I cut the top of the sacrifice but did not remove the entire thing. The wood growth swelled right over the wedge that I had cut in the spring.
While this tree still has a long way to go to be a great bonsai, I’m optimistic that the compact node and branch structure I’ve been able to put at the core of the tree will serve it well in the next few years. The tree needs to grow a new sacrifice from above the original one to help smooth out the taper. My goal for the tree is to continue the trunk refinement while I simultaneously work on the branching.
The other element that needs to be addressed is the root base. For a trident the tree is nothing special. I potted it a bit high in the container with the thought that I may try a ground-layer to get a new start on small roots at the base.
The story of my second batch of seedlings fills in what happened with the tree above before the first photo I have in my archives from 2013. This is my second batch of trident seedlings:
In November 2014 I picked a couple hands full of trident seeds off a street tree near my house. After de-winging them I put them in a jar for soaking; I followed that with leaving them in the fridge over the winter.
February 2015, planted out in a flat they starting to sprout. The germination rate was good and I ended up with about 50 seedlings.
May 2015 – By the end of May they were already large enough to wire. I wanted to be able to put strong movement into most of these trees so I started with the outer seedlings in the flat and wired each one while it was still in place. The wire was removed about a month later, after the trunks set.
April 2016 – the seedlings are a bit over a year old and I’ve transplanted them into individual containers. The growth since last summers wiring has been twisted up a bit using a new batch of wire.
With these seedlings I’ve taken a lot of time to create movement in the trunks before they get too big to work with. It doesn’t take much wood in a trident to make it stiff enough that you can’t get any bend into it. I recommend using wire at every opportunity to add movement to future trunk sections and to adjust branching as needed.
Incremental progress is the magic of bonsai, because really there is no magic. It’s just a logical set of steps, each one executed at the right time, and with the intention of improving the tree or trees over a long period of time. Whether you start with a piece of nursery stock that needs cutback and branch development or a jar full of seeds, the process you use will be what makes your trees mature into great bonsai.
9 Comments
Bruce Winter
April 7, 2016Thanks for the informative post Eric. Did the wedge cut bleed?
Eric Schrader
April 8, 2016It did a little. The funny thing was that I used the Japanese cut paste/caulk that Peter Tea and Mr. Tanaka recommended – it kept the would sealed for about a week before the swarms of pill bugs finished eating all of it. Go figure. They didn’t touch a leaf on the tree.
Jeremiah
April 7, 2016Love seeing your progression pics, please keep up the good work!
Eric Schrader
April 8, 2016Thanks Jeremiah.
ceolaf
April 7, 2016great post, as always.
But I think there’s a typo in the last sentence. I think you meant “jar full of seeds,” rather than “jar full of seedlings.”
Eric Schrader
April 8, 2016Thanks for the compliment and thanks for the correction (which I’ve updated the post to correct.). Cheers.
Carter Beall
April 14, 2016Very nice work! I have a couple of questions. I have started my trident seedlings from a landscape tree, but should the tap root be cut in the first season similar to the seedling-cutting method used with pines? Why or why not? Also, I am in zone 9 so is it too late to plant black pine seedlings?
Eric Schrader
April 16, 2016Hi Carter,
You can still plant black pine seedlings in April or May. The later you plant them the smaller they will be at the end of the first year.
As for the tridents – I don’t think you need to cut the main root like a JBP. You should do root work to get things going, but do it at your normal repotting time.
Whenever I give advice like this it gets me thinking. If you have a lot of tridents, try a few of them and see what happens. If they’re not dead a couple days later then it’s likely safe to do it.
Carter Beall
April 20, 2016Ok great just got the black pine seeds today. I really appreciate that you take time to answer questions.