Acer Palmatum & japanese white pine trade in

Hi,
I had a few trees to trade in as I wanted to reduce my collection in number a bit, and there were too many shimpaku junipers that all needed thinning & wiring at the same time ! so I put 7 trees in the car with a view to hopefully swapping for just one or two. Great fun was had with the bargaining and then it was unbelievably hard to choose some material with a 'credit note' in my pocket

there were a few acer plamatum clumps that had been lurking on the back benches for a year of two and had started to loose a little refinement and form - perfect little project trees, and these last years i'm coming to appreciate deciduous bonsai far more - they certainly need more patience and better techniques to make a good bonsai as they 'bare all' every year (no S bend branches and criss crossing hidden by the evergreen foliage allowed ).

With this in mind my first tree chosen was this 5 trunk palmatum clump that was tucked round the corner just waiting......



A fair bit of trimming and a little wiring has put the tree on track - looking at the next pic one branch on the right is wired too low - when it stops raining it needs easing back up a bit !


there is a nice spreading nebari under a lot of finer overgrown roots to uncover in the spring and a lot of back budding to induce so the fine twig structure is formed, but the original material was good quality so a nice winter image should come about over the next 2 years - (fingers crossed)

There was enough on the credit note for one more tree so i was seduced by a grafted white pine in a powerfull style i've always found appealing - especially as I'd planted my only grafted white pine bonsai in the garden now, so this little tree came home too. Looking at the tree soon showed the small tweaks needed to improve the movement and show the taper in the trunk a little better.

here is the tree untouched, just with the 3yr old yellow needles taken off (piled in front)


Then a saw cut under the long branch and a fencing strainer to pull it down to a more pleasing angle


Now the 2 year old needles are cut off and a few branches thinned and wired so the trunk is more visible - all branches with 3 or more buds are reduced to 2 buds and the tree has one last feed before winter. A repot9 is needed in the spring to wash off the native soil under the trunk)


I'm really happy with my 2 swap trees - anyone else swapped any little gems?

Nice Japanese maple, but I love your JWP. It is healthy, and you have opened the tree nicely... I would lower the left bottom branch even more to be consistent with the angle of the right lowest branch.

- S

Great choice!!
The image you've given the Acer is very appealing. It should start to look great with an autumn glow to the leaves!

The Jwp is a pretty awsome find. As mentioned it does look very healthy, and the work done to thin out the needles and lower a couple of branches has given it a great new look!

Thanks for sharing.... Where did you do a trade in?

Cheers
Bryan

DangerousBry wrote:Great choice!!
The image you've given the Acer is very appealing. It should start to look great with an autumn glow to the leaves!

The Jwp is a pretty awsome find. As mentioned it does look very healthy, and the work done to thin out the needles and lower a couple of branches has given it a great new look!

Thanks for sharing.... Where did you do a trade in?

Cheers
Bryan

Hi Brian, thanks.

The trade in was done at my local bonsai nursery - The japanese Garden at St Mawgan village, Cornwall, Uk.

I traded a couple of good junipers in to be fair- one was an Anne Swinton cascade tree about 90 yr old, one a Bromage & Young juniper from yester-year, and some of my earlier trees that were not getting the time they deserved - a black pine, white beech, korean hornbeam group, larch.

hi suburbia - yes i agree - atm the pot os a mica drum and its now buckling under the strain of curving the main branch (you can see the curve in it now) This coming spring i will repot into a proper pot, re-do the strainers and add a guy wire to that left hand branch so it matches the rythm of the main branch.

cheers