Maple in progress I

I purchased some 4" pot Acer Palmatum from Evergreen Gardenworks about four years ago. Two years ago they received some pretty severe trunk chops to develop some taper as well as start them down the road to becoming broom...ish style trees. Here is the first. It is currently 1.5" diameter at the base and has been growing unchecked for the last two seasons. Now that all the leaves are gone I decided to prune back much of the wild growth before putting them in the cold shed for the winter. In the spring I plan on re-potting and checking on the root development. That should help in selecting a front.

View #1


View #2


View #3


View #4


I'd appreciate any thoughts or suggestions that any of the forum members may have.

Nice Japanese maple stump you have there, Cordon. To myself, I see view #1 as the front. There is some good interest with the movement from right to left (also, I don't see any pruning scars). Also, there are some good branches there to help you develop some great taper. I'm sure checking the roots will help you decide on the best front. I think view #3 would be my last choice because the tree is moving backwards (it looks like it in the photo), and you have that bottom low branch coming out towards you (which would create another pruning scar). However, thanks for sharing! Have you had great success growing Japanese maples in inorganic soil in New Mexico?

here's a very rough virt of a shohin sized tree you could make off of image #1



- bob

Thanks for the virtual. I planned on letting them go wild again for the next couple seasons. I'd like to develop a more powerful trunk.

As far as the soil is concerned, I've had great success. What i use is Boon's Mix. I do water them everyday though, sometimes twice when it has been really hot and dry. I fertilize with Osmocote. Believe it or not my maples were in full sun from dawn until 2PM and didn't show signs of leaf burn or stress. The grasshoppers and aphids seemed to like the maples, but the heat and sun didn't bother them too much.

One year since the original posted pictures. I plan to let it grow freely again this season. I'm considering moving my whole collection from pots and into the ground for the next five years to allow for fully unrestricted growth. Anyway, here's the pics.

View #1


View #2


View #3


View #4

I like the movement in parts of this tree... But I think further branch selection could pay off in the long run. Your idea to put your trees in the ground is probably a good one. Decide what your end goal is for this tree, remove everything that doesn't contribute to that image you are going for, cut back the roots so you can plant it on top of a board or tile- growing in the ground should be as much about building the nebari as it is about building a thick trunk- and let it go for a couple years.

If you do some branch selection you might be well served to make cuttings from the branches you remove- they have a nice, natural looking wiggle to them, but some of the upper branches are too heavy and make it hard to tell which is your intended trunk line and which is just a branch. JMO

It seems that my maple was infected with verticillium wilt. Soon after bud break the new growth shriveled and died back. Since then, I've been watching the slow progression of death down the branches. Since this is a root borne fungus, there is no pruning my way out of this problem. I was worried about some of the symptoms they presented last growing season. Some branches had leaves that changed color and dried up for no apparent reason. However, they grew vigorously with lots of growth extension.

The healthy maples in my collection have all broken bud and have been growing well. Oh well, such is life. Since I'll be moving to the Pacific Northwest at the end of the summer having two fewer trees makes things a little more simple.