Small palmatum

Thank you!

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This springs growth was lush and healthy, if a little leggy from having to spend too much time indoors due to late frosts. This will have to be trimmed back sometime but for now enjoying the fresh.

I really enjoyed this post.  Love the tree. Thanks for sharing.

Like the tree a lot.As a matter of fact,it is great to see them handled like this.

Fun little tree, very cool!

Thanks again everyone. Yes it is a fun tree and I've had enormous enjoyment working on it.

It unfortunately looks like nearly all of the internodes are so long this year as to be mostly unusable. I think I may have over fertilized last year, but my first priority is having trees strong so it's ok and for that reason I did not pinch back new growth this year as it emerged. Have to consult my Peter Adams books but guessing I'll cut back to first set of leaves sometime mid season like in a defoliation.

After some fall pruning. Internodes a little long but I may be able to live with them. In the four years since I started this thread I've learned maples are hard. Maybe especially small ones. The apex has been a problem since I snapped the original one by accident, and I had to prune the right branch there back hard. Hope it buds back. If it works I may try doing that to the actual apex next year to get more branching.

The tree looks great (I'm a sucker for a Japanese maple at anytime and yours is very nice).

I haven't tried Kiyohime myself but am I correct in thinking that they are one of the more basally dominant varieties? If so has this effected the development of the apex at all or does it still grow strongly at the top?

Either way, good luck and keep us updated. It's a lovely little tree.

Regards

Richard

Thank you Richard. I believe it is actually kotohome however. I should edit the original post. I'd gotten two cutting grown trees that year that I thought were the same but clearly weren't when they leafed out. The other one I think is kiyohime and is being grown as a semi-cascade. Regardless I have not seen a lot of evidence for basal dominance in it.

Nice maple.

I am not sure about Kotohime, the leaves are very large. I am growing one from a small pre-bonsai and fertilized it very much. The leaves and internodes stayed much smaller than yours.

On the other hand it does not look like Kiyohome either. The branches are not "stubby" but the leaves look like Kiyo.

However there's lots of variance. I have some type of yatsubusa maple which I cannot identify.

Good luck, keep up the great work.

A very interesting project...