AusBonsai

hi guys,

Last weekend i had seemed to be a little bored so i had decided to go and find some trees to dig up, what i had found was this big trident maple amongst a few more, anyway i have been slowly reducing the size of the tree to reduce the bleeding, slowly does is, now as i was about to cut for the last time i relized that the size of it now i find appealing, the hight of the tree is 1.4m and the thickness of the bottom of the trunk is 260mm round.
So i would love to have some of your opinions, what do you think.
Sorry about the pics please do your best.

molty

Hi Molty

What sort of yard do you have that you kind find that while going for a look

Sorry, but I think you are still way too tall. There is a serious taper problem at the top of the tree, and I would pick a point around half way (or lower) between the two thick branches and cut it there. Preferably close to one of the small branches that are already growing in an upward fashion, but one will present it self that you can acurately prune to later. I think the proportion of the tree will be greatly inproved being shorter.



Best Regards

Tony

Perhaps it would be worth aerial layering it into three so that you have several to work on. The movement and taper in the uppermost section from the top down to the top left big branch is better than that below. If you layer it just below that branch you can use the branch as a sacrifice to create root spread and taper. Next layer could be the mid section above the first whorl of branches. It has the least characteristics but with time could be changed. That would leave the base on the original roots to work with. I would grow it for a season to replace wood and let it pack up on reserves and then apply three layers.

cheers
Ash

hi ash and tony,

i actually like both ideas, although i dont think i have the patience at the moment to air layer, only because got a few growing at the moment. As far as your idea tony would you be able to show something from the pics on that are there. Sorry they are not the best pics. the hight of the tree was going to be shorter, then i stopped because i had seen one around the same hight, only it was developed.

cheers molty

Wish I could use this damn computer better.

Tried saving the photo to put some lines and arrows on it, but for some reason it saved it as a bitmap file and would not reload back to AB.

Looks possible to cut it back to the first branch, but this would leave a rather large scar. There is a group of nodes a couple of inches above the first branch that would also be a good place to prune and allow to regrow before final pruning to one of the new leaders.

Hope that helps.

Tony

Hi Molty

Geez I think I finally worked something out on the computer.

The first cut I spoke about is the lower line with the front from the right. The second is the upper line with the nodes for a future trunk indicated by the arows. Hope that is better

Tony

hi tony,

yes heaps better thank you , i think i will cut from the upper line, in doing this would it be more attractive to bend the lower right branch down further or could it stay where it is.
cheers molty

Hey Molty

I would probably cut it back a bit with the view of a shoot at its base to replace it with as it will be quite thick relative to the others.

Tony