Trident Maple

My granddaughter & I have a trident maple that has fallen on hard times. You don't want to see a picture. There is a fairly thick, short trunk almost entirely occupied across the top by a huge pruning scar. In our climate, I don't think it will ever amount to anything. The tree has sentimental value, so i don't want to just throw it out. Could I coppice it by cutting across the base near the bottom and grow it into a multitrunk clump, say with five trunks?
Iris

I think with such sentimental value, I would reduce bit by bit. It might be too much to knock it back in one go.

Iris,
Have you considered using a couple of seedlings and approach or thread grafting. Sometimes this is a great and very quick option when you're unsure if a bud will break where you want.

Is the scar from an old chop and if so, was it made at an angle or flat?

Neil

I guess you have to see a picture. The scar is from a trunk chop. Much of the trunk is hollowed out & filled with a plastic filler. Seedlings from trident maple all look different, & I wouldn't use them for grafting. I don't know what that would accomplish, anyway. Also, I don't see where cutting it back little by little would help either. I'd still have the same big scar.


Iris

Iris, if you would like branches lower down, I would recomend approach grafting. It's very easy with trident maple, and your thin whippy branches will be ideal. As far as the scar is concerned, Tridents heal over really quickly, if left to grow unhindered and fed well.

Far from being a hopeless case, for a Trident Maple, I'd say that is great starter material. They are so vigorous if treated right. Fed well and cut back hard next year, it should pop buds all over the place. You may, eventually, want to cut everything off the trunk that is there now, but I wouldn't cut anything at all until late spring next year (2010). And then I'd only head back some of the longer whippy growths to 1 pair of buds to force backbudding. You might want to keep the lowest couple of well placed long growths, in case this first attempt fails, so that there is an option of approach or thread grafting later.

Do this and you may have a nice tree in a couple of years.

Iris,
Both Kev & Will are correct, although Will's suggestion maybe faster.

Will is suggesting pretty much what I did. Not having seen the pic earlier I suggested seedlings. True seedlings do "take" different, I have used them for grafting and had no noticeable difference....yet.

As Will mentioned, you have a PERFECT arrangement currently with the long whippy shoots to do some great thread or approach grafting. Put an apex, 1st and back branch exactly where you want them. The grafts would take about a season if the tree is healthy.

You could develop a very nice powerful little shohin with this tree in very very short order....or take longer to develop a "so-so" larger tree.

Good material. Thanks for the photo.
Neil

What would the other side of the tree look like as a front?? you have a good lower branch close to the chop. trim back like Jim said maybe a small hollow with the chop so it would not be stright across... john

Thanks for the suggestions. We'll take another look at it in the spring.
Iris

Iris, I hope you will stick with this tree. It has a lot of character IMO and the way Tridents have the ability
to re-generate, I don't think it will take long to make something nice out of it.
As mentioned above, feed it well and push it and let it tell you which way it wants to go.

Your tree will be a nice bonsai..Ireally like the trunk,wish i had one like it to work on send it to west virginia!!!! you have the thoughts on what to do go for it..john