Advices for beginner wanted for a trident maple

[Yuffie]

I’ve been a member of Ausbonsai for 5 years, and I come and admired everyone’s photos on here regularly, but have not done any actual bonsai myself. Please let me know if I posted this in the wrong area, and I’ll correct it.

I bought a trident maple rooted cutting and planted it in the ground about 4 years ago, and unwittingly planted some galangal nearby. The galangal took over very quickly and blocked access to the maple, so it wasn’t pruned as much as I wanted to. We dug the galangal, and the maple up when we had to move about two months ago, and I’ve put the maple in a polybox. It’s probably not the best time of year to dig it up, but we were moving. Now, I’m not sure what to do next with it… should I prune it further and shorten it? If so where should I cut? Or I should wait till spring and see if it actually survived first?

Any advice is greatly appreciated ~

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[kcpoole]

Pity you did not chop it low at least once
No problem with digging up now or even a few months ago. Shoud be fine.

If you want a much taller and feminine tree then you can cut at the larger branch as I have done in virt, and then regrow a smaller apex and your branching.

the other possibility is to cut back to either of the shoots at the 2 lines i have drawn. This will give a much shorter tree, but you will take much longer as you will need to grow a new apex at least 2 times to get taper from the larger stump.

Ken

[Yuffie]

Thanks Ken, I think I'm going to do the lower cut, since I'm taking this hobby slowly n also realise I don't cut enough height off previously...
I've striked a few cuttings off this tree, so I can feel more comfortable about cutting and not fear killing the tree so much :p its a psychological thing...

[mjhc]

Short term pain. Long term gain. I'm with ken, cut hard now and it will thrive in the summer. These things are very hardy.
Or even ground later to get a nicer spread of roots and shrink the trunk slighty.

[Bougy Fan]

I third the good advice Ken has given. It is also really important to sort the roots out every year when it goes dormant. Root prune to start getting a nice flat radial spread of roots. You could air layer the top off but it means less time to work on the taper of the tree. Have you joined a bonsai club - a great place for beginners to learn.

[Yuffie]

Thanks everyone for your advices ~
I won’t be able to join a bonsai club yet, not until my two year old is more mature and less destructive so I can take him along ^^ In the mean time, I’ll use the Internet and books when I can, and of course, Ausbonsai ~

[Yuffie]

HI everyone,
I made the chop and have stick some of the prunings into a couple of pots, but I forgot to take pics until September last year, and didn't post them. Thought I'll post these now before other updates. I have previously strike the standard pencil thickness cuttings, and they seem take easily, so I tried some thicker branches this time as well.

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[Yuffie]

I am pregnant and had severe morning sickness for a couple of months and didn't water my plants, or take any pictures before they leaf out. They seem to have survived okay, except for the largest cutting, which started leafing out then shriveled up when the warm weather came

I can't move the box without help, so I can only stick my hand in between the pots and foliage to take pictures, so apologies for not seeing clearly. Now come the questions... I don't have the time nor energy to do much with this at this time, and probably for some time after the new baby's born, so I'm planning to top up some potting mix and leave them to grow for now... But should I trim off the top growth and leave just a couple of the lower branches to thicken? Cut the main truck shorter? Or should I just leave it as is?

Also, should I pot up the cuttings separately now, or it's okay to leave them for another year?

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[Bougy Fan]

With the heat we have been having I would leave the cuttings alone. Good time to cut back the trunk though, it is a bit hard to clearly see from the photos. I think you need to cut off the thick branch near the top and use one of the skinnier ones as a new leader. Lots of water and fertiliser if you can.

[shibui]

All the best for the rest of the pregnancy and birth. After that you will get really busy.

the good news is that the trees you have are trident maples. Good news because even if you ignore them and don't do any pruning they will just grow but you can successfully cut them back later and still usually get good trees. If you want to do some pruning now you can cut any or all of the branches back and they will all shoot again which will give you even more options when you finally get time to get back to bonsai (in around 6 years )