The idea is to get the tree to heal so the wound becomes undetectable within a few years. You'll still be able to see it next spring ('17), even though it will be closed, but it won't be noticed except maybe by the practiced eye by spring '18. Since it's developing in a large nursery can instead of in the ground where it started, it will be about 3-4 years before it goes in it's first bonsai pot - after the change in taper at the chop isn't so exaggerated.

I posted mainly so those newer to bonsai could get a sense of what chopping to build taper is all about.

Al

I believe it also gives a sense of the time/patience involved. Great serial, Al. That sphagnum moss is different from any I've seen...

ez

It's sphagnum moss, harvested alive - differs from sphagnum peat, which is dead moss harvested from below the living moss on top of the bog. Used extensively for air layers as well as for it's anti-fungal and healing properties.

Then it is what I am familiar with, but in that first photo it looked so white.

ez

That's the fresh chop right after the cut and grinding to make it concave. It's not yet painted over with waterproof glue.

Al

Well now I'm just curious how that same chop would look had it just been left open-air, without that moist peat moss treatment.

It would have progressed toward closing the wound at 1/2 to 1/3 the time (took 2-3 times longer).

Al

Very informative. What did you use for making such a clean cut and then for grinding the wound?

I usually make the initial chops with a good pruning saw, leaving the trunk about an inch longer than necessary. Then I use a powerful die grinder with aggressive carbide bits for removing a lot of wood, fast, then finish with a Dremel Tool with assorted bits for fine work. When I'm done, I paint the wound with waterproof carpenter's glue, being careful to seal the cambium but not slop the glue over the edge of the wound on the bark. For best healing, it's important that large wounds are cupped (concave) have a bit of a 'V' at the bottom of the wound, and the cambium is not torn, but cut very cleanly flush with the wound at the edges - no rough edges or tiny 'tags' at the wound edges. I use a grafting knife, honed and stropped, to trim the edges. Make sure your knife cuts are always toward the center axis of the trunk or branch, or you'll end up tearing the cambium from the sapwood, no matter how sharp your tool is.

Al

Thanks Al. What you described is very clear. I have read bits and pieces of this process before but yours is the clearest. I do not have a die grinder (I have to acquire one). But earlier this year I did some very aggressive chops on several plants and all of them branched out like gang busters. But I have not yet taken the chop down to the first branch point yet. I am trying to gather up all the courage to do it eventually. Probably that section already died to the first branch.

You can see I grow a lot of my own trees in the ground and chop them - many are chopped several times before the trunk line is set. Average stay in the ground from cutting to when it gets lifted is 4-5 years.

Al

How is that maple doing today? Root-pruned for Spring yet?

The only tridents I know are in the street so I can't chop them hehe.

You can't chop them, but you can snip a few cuttings.

It's doing fine - through dormancy & just leaving the quiescent phase as the buds are swelling. I'll wait until the buds are just starting to look like they want to open before I repot - next week some time for sure.

Al

Al: It must be a very busy time for you now but if you get a chance I have a few questions for you regarding timing.

What is the window of opportunity with regards to repotting? Here in our club people have started repotting (not really fully bare rooting but close) within last 2 weeks or so - although buds are just showing some swelling now.

Second question: Do you always/generally do full repot? I presume the answer may depend on how mature or how much farther along the plant is developed.

This time I am much more ready with materials as long as weather
cooperates a bit. I wish I had a nice indoor repotting area - something I
plan to do this year. I at least got done with most of the major pruning on deciduous. That brings me to the third question:

As I understand for conifers mid-late April is a better time to repot. Or may be you have better suggestion. Will it be Ok to start pruning now - at least the major branches?

Al, nice wound healing process. Very impressive.

About getting Trident cuttings, when exactly should I do it? I read a lot on the internet to try and get Japanes Maple cuttings and that is supposed to be early Summer or after the Spring push, is that true? What about Trident Maple? All the Tridents in my neighborhood have big lush red buds right now and they could be pushing out leaves within weeks. I can snip a few now or later but I understand that timing is key for rooting! I have on hand quite the assortment of soil to choose from such as sphagnum moss, sphagnum peat, gritty, 511, screened and unscreened Turface, Perlite.

val rie: My experience with JM is all over the place. Some JM's cultivars are harder than others. The species one (green JM) is a lot easier. Why not take some cuttings now and then later in June or so. Usually the rule is that in winter/spring you take hardwood cuttings and in Summer you take softwood cuttings. Well now all you have are hardwood or at the best last years growth.

Trident is easier to root. But do the same, take some now and then later in Summer. I pruned my in-ground trident a few weeks back. And I had lots of cuttings. I planted some in pots and buried them in ground. Others I just stuck them in the ground. I am hoping some will take. Ideally, I should protect them better. Later in summer I will do the same again. If you like I can send you some rooted cuttings, if any, later in Summer. I really do not need any more tridents but cannot resist trying to root cuttings. But if you are interested just message me and I would be happy to send some your way. On the other hand, you may just want to have fun and do it yourself.

I did the same with some of my JMs. One which I failed always is a JM called 'Nishiki Gawa'. I have one in ground that is the source for cuttings. Even failed with air-layers. The tree itself is originally grafted on a species JM. I have a coral bark maple that is a bit easier where I had some success with cuttings and air layers.

I just realized my rooting powder was only .1%IBA. I ordered .8% today.

TOC yes if I fail with mine I'd love it if you could send me some! I'm gonna get some cuttings from before they leaf out. Although to take late spring and summer cuttings they will be in leaf and I'm wondering if I will need to mist them often or not (like with JM soft cuttings propagation, ask if you want to see link to scientific study).

val: I will let you know if any of mine strike. I would be happy to send you one - may be more. One of them started to leaf out - I was hoping it would not. Others still seem dormant.

Please do post the link. I am always ready to read. In commercial production misting is most convenient and provides great control over humidity. For hobby propagation I find a humidity dome is more convenient. I use these that have couple of adjustable vents in case the humidity becomes too high.

You can use clear plastic storage boxes for creating a high humidity environment for cuttings. Also high humidity is useful mainly when the cuttings have leaves. Dormant cuttings will benefit from a lower humidity - otherwise fungal infections becomes a problem.

Just got Hormodin 3 in the mail gonna do half the cuttings with it and the other half without. Will try to take cuttings tomorrow morning. I should be able to make a humidity box out of a clear plastic storage box I have.

So the tridents are already in leaf in SW PA?

Here is the study I was referring to:http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-77602016000300355

I note you hooked up all the cuttings with string, nice. I'm thinking of using fresh gritty mix, what do you all think?

One of the trident cuttings leafed out before everything else. My main plant in ground is pushing buds but not yet leafed out.

I do not usually use strings but in some cases it becomes necessary to keep the cuttings stable and immobile.

Would love to see an update :)

I'll take a picture tomorrow & share.

Al

Val rie: Sent a reply to your message but thought I would repeat it here. Lost my cuttings due to my mistakes. First forgot o water them after they leafed out and some dried out too much. Plus slugs managed to do a great deal of damage to the young new leaves. I should have anticipated both. Lost a big fat siberian elm cutting too. On the bright side, seems like one out two trident maple air layers I did mid summer seems to have rooted. I will probably detach it in a few weeks before winter arrives. I also lost a TM this year after severe root pruning and repotting. I have another one that I repotted and root pruned that is doing very well.

And I'll respond here as well!

Ah, sorry to hear the cuttings didn't make it. I have also lost a tree (or two, let's not dwell on it) in the Spring after heavy root prune and branch pruning. The good thing is my indoor plants are doing well and I found a Trident Maple in Pennsylvania that a nursery sells so I could go and get that. Apparently they are a few feet tall and very thin trunk.

You should probably buy that TM from the nursery. That is also how I got first one. Just a thin bare root stick. That has been in the ground for now over 20 yrs and serves as a mother plant for all kinds of experimentation. They grow quite fast and so by the end of next year you should have respectable plant.

Soon after I lifted it in 2014:

It's the one in the nursery can with the large white wound. ^^^^

The large wound is almost callused over, which is why I could cut it back so hard. It doesn't matter how much growth there is proximal to a would; it's the mass distal to the wound that determines how fast the would can/will callus over:

Taken midday today after a few months of pruning and pinching. Obviously, it's a young tree with a long way to go, but it's on its way. I'll probably have it in a pot spring of '21:

I'll wait until the leaves drop off, then prune and spray with a dormant oil. 2 blobs of white cottony goo wore the only evidence of scale I've seen all summer - cottony maple scale, but in both cases they were on a Styrax japonica. No other pests sighted other than a wayward grasshopper that happened to be too slow the day it was sited munching on a bittersweet vine.

I was with a friend at the Michigan All State show last May & Ken's Bonsai was there as a vendor with a huge garbage bag full of trident seedlings (must of had a thousand, I'd guess) for a buck apiece. I bought 25 for grafting and because I was stupid enough to think I needed a few more trident forests. I'd just bought a nice mountain cherry from them too, so he gave me an extra handful. Turns out I ended up with 54 - 1/8-1/4" seedlings.

Al

That is a very nice TM with great movement. I feel inspired and have to do something about my TM next year - has a nice base but an ugly top. 54 seedlings - quite something to play with. Have you every tried fusing them together like I have seen on the net - I am guessing you know what I am talking about.

I have a 20+ yr old TM in ground. And it never ever produced any seeds. I wonder why. Perhaps because I prune it sometimes hard in early summer.

I have a TM with about a 2.5" diameter trunk in a large (25 gallon?) ceramic pot that provided me with about 75 seeds last year and maybe 200 seeds this year. They are VERY easy to grow from seed. I harvest the seeds in early fall, cut the "wing" off the samaras (fruit - the "helicoptors") and let them dry in a shallow cardboard box. Before the weather turns, I'll fill a flat with soil, give the seeds a hot water treatment (pour hot water over the seeds and let them sit overnight), then sow the seeds on top of the soil (gritty mix, but 5:1:1 is great, too), then cover it with 3/4 - 1" of additional soil. I moisten the soil and cover with a screen to deny rodents and birds access to the seeds and put them on the grow bench to stratify over winter. If you live in zone 5 or lower, I'd allow cold stratification to occur in the garage. To keep seeds from drying out, I toss a bit of snow on top of the soil from time to time. Seeds will germinate in spring with about a 75% success rate.

Seeds are so cheap it's like free trees. E.G., an ounce of trident seeds (about 1,700) costs about $8.50. Even if you only had half germinate (850), that would be a penny per tree. I just ordered an ounce of Acer ginnala (amur maple) and an ounce of Prunus tomentosa (Nanking cherry) from Schumaker Tree and Shrub seeds. I ordered the cherry seeds because an article I read in Bonsai Focus about the tree made it sound very interesting because of its branching havit and the fact the bark looks old at a young age. I ordered the amur maples to use for fusing (superior to tridents in that regard). Their bark is smoother than tridents when young so inosculation (fusing) occurs much faster than with trident.

Yes, I have worked with fusing several species of trees, and sat in as a silent observer on workshops by Pauline Muth (fusing amur maples) and Mark Fields (fusing tridents). I've also seen dozens of tridents for sale that were created from fusing more than 100 seedlings.

Al

I went and got the TM!

Also I got this red JM from the same place. It was very tall and the entire top was sun-dried. Almost at ground level was a nice red branch. I thought it may be okay to cut it a few nodes above the nice low branch. Do you think this is okay? Without cutting it it would not have been able to fit either in my car or on the balcony where I am keeping it.

Below are a picture of the tree after I cut it, and a picture of the top that we took with us to decide what to do with it later.

Al, Thanks a lot on info TM, fusing, seed source - chock full of good info. I am now tempted to buy both Amur maple and Nanking cherry. Heard and read good things about them. Perhaps even Trident maple. I really want to try fusing. I will probably plant may be 30-50 of each of TM and Amur Maple. They say shelf life is about 2yrs which means it will be better if I donate the rest to our bonsai club - may be some one in the club can use it.

Val: I think I would leave the maple alone and let it recover. The new shoot near the base is very young. You should protect this plant well in winter. With regards to the cut branch - This is a bad time of the year to start cuttings but may be Al has some ideas.

About the upper part of the tree, my girlfriend said she wanted to try cuttings and I told her it would be very very unlikely it would work but she insisted and we took it home...

For the lower remaining part, I just hope that young branch won't die from freezing. I won't repeat last year's mistake and repot now in the fall. It killed my good brand new Katsura that I loved and another red JM that I was trying to save from poor conditions at the store. Both of them died. I will be careful about watering only when the medium is dry on both the JM and the TM. Now they are getting about 2 hours of full sun (from 4pm to 6pm)due to the orientation of my balcony and I hope that little bit of light will help them store a bit more energy to not die in the winter and restart in the Spring. Maybe that new red branch will mature more too before losing its leaves and going dormant so I can use it as the leader next Spring. I am still trying to figure out what kind of soil is in the (soft wall bags with handles) pots and wether or not it is too moisture retentive and not aerated enough. I dug a bit at the top and it seems fluffy and not pot-bound but I don't know how to figure this out. I'd like to make sure I do anything I can to make sure these two new guys do well.

For context, both trees were in a nursery in the open, in rows of trees all in soft bag pots, with lines of garden hoses with holes I assume to irrigate each tree. The JM seemed like it was not happy because the entire top was fried and it had at least 4 feet of bare trunk before the top bifurcation and branches that you can see in the picture that I posted of the top cut and in the vase of water.

The TM seemed to be thriving although it's numerous branches are quite short. Somehow I am not worried about that one.

I would like to gleem any insights on what to do, if anything, as far as watering, fertilizing and other things. I cut the trunk of the JM in the middle between two nodes, 5 nodes above the new red branch at the base. Did not treat the wound at all. Pictures coming.

The JM. This is almost the maximum amount of full sun it gets everyday covering three quarters of the remaining branch.

And this shot is a close up of where the branch meets the trunk. You can also observe that at that point a few mini branches have grown.