Kashima Japanese Maple; Nursery stock to Bonsai

[TimS]

I recently picked up this large specimen dwarf Japanese Maple 'Kashima' cultivar that I'd been watching and thinking about at the local nursery for months now. It had a sister tree for a long time at the nursery, another Kashima of a similar size but with much more movement in the trunk that i have now learned was picked up by a fellow ausbonsai member. If anyone is interested there is actually one more Kashima still there or was a few days ago, but a much thinner multi stem with very little taper and few low buds (ie i wasn't interested in it over this one)

That sister tree has begun the bonsai journey, and honesty was part of the reason i hadn't purchased this. Given it had movement in the trunk where this has little, I'd mentally put this tree aside as inferior but i had still been umming and erring about it especially being a not inexpensive tree.

But as so often happens with me, a combination of bad financial decisions and a healthy disregard for good sense regarding timelines of achieving good quality trees won out and i stuck a deal for this and another smaller (comparatively) Kashima.

Kashima is a fantastic cultivar for bonsai; The dwarf nature means a naturally small leaf palmate leaf and short internodes that doesn't require a tree to be anywhere near as large as this one to be a great specimen. The leaf margins in spring get a lovely pink tinge which adds to the attraction, it allegedly air layers well according to Bill Valavanis, and has a spreading habit rather than an upright habit meaning you don't have to fight irrepressible upright growth to develop ramification (but you do have to watch the apex doesn't weaken over time). It is also one of the first to leaf out in Spring, meaning it's also one you can get to first when it comes to air layering.

That last comment is a hint as to my plan here; rather than wasting all the top growth that has some lovely movement and potential multi trunk layers in there, i'm going to spend the next 1 or 2 springs attempting to take air layers off it for 2 really simple reasons and one useful byproduct. A) I hate wasting good potential material and B) if i can sell a few off it does offset the price of the tree a little bit and the byproduct of that is getting that extra growth time for new buds to pop down lower where the actual tree will be formed that has been shaded out for probably 3-5+ years looking at some of the extensions. It does also kick down the road the inevitable day when i need to tackle repotting this tree and finding out what kind of roots i have to work with.

So today I've started the first of the air layers on this tree and on the smaller one too. I'll post a photo of the layers tomorrow, but on this tree I've started 7 so far, and there are still more on there able to be done. Especially lower down as the top stuff comes off there are some thicker branches with movement around finger and thumb thickness that i'm looking forward to trying.

So for now here's the tree and an MS paint idea of where i'm looking at the tree going in future, but i want to take my time to slowly coax the bonsai out of it without creating too many sizable scars, hence i'm doing the slow air layer backwards down to the bonsai method.

Tree today under the patio as it's about the only place i can fit it at the moment

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My hand for a vague reference of the trunk

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Future idea of the tree i'd like to coax out of it down the track and preferrably lower if better buds pop.

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[TimS]

Here's a photo of a few of the started air layers. I began using the sandwhich bag method i've used in the past as i can see root development wihtout having to disturb the moss, but it gives me the red hot squirts trying to tie them without the sphagnum falling out everywhere, so i went with the 100mm pots i still have about 500 off stored in the garage and it was much easier.

I've set 9 layers on the tree so far and might do 1 or 2 more for this season still

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[TimS]

I made the choice today to give up on all the air layers on the Kashima.

Partly because i don't need another 10-15 young maples kicking about the place, but mostly becuase I'll be pulling out one of my garden tree Ume's next year, and I'm feeling foolish enough to see if it can be coaxed into something bonsai-ish (it's thicker than this maple and has no taper) down the track with some grafting. That means I'll need this big pot the maple is in come late winter next year for the ume to go in.

So to make it both vaguely manageable to remove from the pot next winter, and also to give it enough time to recover from a good trim before autumn i decided to cut it back hard now. None of the layers were looking particularly promising aside from one that had callused, so i'm not too fazed.

It's protected under the patio, so hopefully it isn't too shocked by the 30+ days coming, but i didn't want to leave it too much later either as i want it healthy for a possible/ likely significant root reduction next year.

Clearly it will be cut back further as buds shoot in the future, lots of long thin branches left for it to recover with, so it definitely won't be this large in canopy in future.

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