AusBonsai

I grew a few trident from seed in about 2005 or 6 and put a few in the ground to develop.
This one was lifted in 2009 and root pruned to flatten the Root mass and put into a orchid pot to develop from there.

in 2010 I root pruned and cut back hard to develop taper and to remove a large sacrifice branch

Ken

2 years later, Repotted and trunk chopped again, and also added a few root grafts using both tread and and Approach the thread graft methods.

Have done not much since then except water and feed and the occasional repot and hard prune for taper.
Last year when repotting, decided more root grafts are in order but as had no seedlings, put them off to this year and as Shibui posted that he had lots, I got 20 to graft on where needed.
viewtopic.php?f=102&t=24226

Ken

MelB asked to post pics of the grafting and as today was such a nice day I took the time to do just that

Pulled out of the pot and cut back roots real hard and then prpared the seedlings.
Some were quite bg and a push pin woud not go thru, so needed somethig a little bigger and able to do ne handed.
Brad nailer works real weel

The nails will grow over eventually and you will never know in a year or so.
As usual I also use cable ties to hold together firmly.

Ken

About 12 root grafts on altogether with most just nailed on but some were quite small and needed push pins to hold.
After a few months i will bull these out.
When potting up, all the roots were teased out so that they radiate out from the trunk and I tried to leave all the seedling roots long as with the stems to aviod setting them back before spring

After potting up I gathered all the graft stems together with a loosely wrapped wire to pull them away from the trunk so I can see that and keep the growth there under control.

Till next year and lets see how this turns out?

Ken

Thanks Ken, very illuminating!

Great post, thanks Ken!
Do you not need to make a channel in the trunk to nestle the graft into? Does it make a difference if you do?
Cheers, Symon

Ken,
That trunk really has thickened up nicely over the years.. good maintenance work.

Nice work Ken,
Do you scrape back to the cambium (on the trunk or whip ... or both) in order to encourage the grafting process or is this not required? How long would you expect for the grafts to take?
Looking forward to seeing how this turns out. Thanks for posting.

delisea wrote:Great post, thanks Ken!
Do you not need to make a channel in the trunk to nestle the graft into? Does it make a difference if you do?
Cheers, Symon

I don't think it is necessary on fast growing species with thick bark like Tridents. They bulk up pretty quickly and cover any blemishes and having lumps and bumps can add to character I think

Do you scrape back to the cambium (on the trunk or whip ... or both) in order to encourage the grafting process or is this not required

you can and probably makes the graft a little quicker to take but if you hold them tightly IMHO it should not make a huge diff with tridents.

With tis one as i wanted to bulk out the base of the trunk I thought to leave them full thickness might be better

Ken

Nice work Ken and great post, very informative and helpful this time of year.

I also have a bunch of tridents in the ground that I'll be digging up in a few more weeks, provided I can wait that long.
It will be the 1st time I'll be trunk chopping them, they are currently 1meter and half, roughly how high from the ground would you cut it. I don't really have any branches low at the bottom.

Thanks
Tony

toshtony wrote:Nice work Ken and great post, very informative and helpful this time of year.

I also have a bunch of tridents in the ground that I'll be digging up in a few more weeks, provided I can wait that long.
It will be the 1st time I'll be trunk chopping them, they are currently 1meter and half, roughly how high from the ground would you cut it. I don't really have any branches low at the bottom.

Thanks
Tony

the height of the first chop is dependent on the style of the future tree, and how tall you want it to be eventually.
typically the first branch will be around the first chop so figure the chop will be about 1/3 the way up of the eventual full height.

Of course it you like shorter stumpy ( Sumo) trees then you might cut shorter.

Do not be concerned about low branches (or lack of) as you will cut them all off anyway and start again once the trunk is developed. You can then graft in branches where you want them.

once you do cut, you will get low shoots so keep some at different heights to use as sacrifice branches as I did with this one.

Also when you replant out for next year, look hard at the roots and if you have any bare spots, try to encourage new ones or graft on a seedling or 2 to fix the nebari early. that is where I went wrong with this one.

Ken