Big old kiyo hime - Time to refine

Hi,
This is my 'new' Kiyo Hime Clump that I've been saving up for for ages !! - 5 trunks, 29" high, 49" wide, pot 28" oval - there is a pot of wound sealer lurking under there for scale!

The tree was imported to the UK in '82 by/for Dan Barton and actually features in a couple of pictures in his book. For many years it has been part of a private collection of acer bonsai at a Japanese Garden & Nursery. The last couple of seasons the tree has not been hard pruned or thinned so i have a lot of tree to work with !!

The first pic is the 'front' as it appears in Dans book - main trunk in front of the lesser trunks and the original branch structure allowing a view into the tree



The second pic is the original back.........a very inviting healthy mass of branches to create many layers and foliage clouds from.



I'm going to enjoy the Autumn colour which is spreading across the tree each day now, then clean out the old twigs and all the old leaves as they have a tendancy to go black, soggy and get stuck in the dense twigs if left in the tree. I've found in the past on other trees that these old leaves trapped in the tree can cause dieback and even cause some new buds to rot.

If the Autumn colour fully develops before the leaves start falling off i'll get some pictures, and then an update with the winter image.

For 2012 I plan to feed it well, thin it quite hard initially to get some light to the inner branches and am considering defoliation then pinch to 1 pair of leaves on all the middle & lower branches early next season as doing this triggered 100's of inner buds to open on another large 'yatsabusha' type maple i have that had some bare inner branches. It will be good to refine the image over the next few years and hopefully do this quite rare 4ft clump kyohime all the justice it deserves. fingers crossed

cheers Marcus

what a beautiful tree! thanks for sharing, marcus. look forward to seeing your progress..

cheers!

You have got yourself a very beautiful tree !!! it also has a great history to go with it.. look at it like you say till next year then began to styleto make it your tree!!!! very nice take care john

Fall colors in August?

GaryWood wrote:Fall colors in August?

yes - in cornwall - UK - far south west -( i dont know our zone (slap my wrist )) we have very early springs - it is much milder than the rest of England due to the Gulf stream - last winter we never had a single flake of snow in the garden -

A kyohime thats been here a few years will, on average, be bud bursting late feburary or first week of march. (Satsukis can be flowering in late march!) By August the tree has well and truely completed a summer cycle and as soon as the day length significantly reduces (now 1.5 - 2 hrs less light) the trees are showing Autumn colours - the olny way to extend this is to defoliate in April/may - then autumn colour will be put off a while.

The last few years i have left all my trees fully exposed to all winter weather on their benches- no greenhouse, no fleece, etc trying to stop them waking up and bud bursting too early - a late frost has caught many a flush of early foliage meaning i am trying to protect tender growth in April & even early may !!

We get long lasting Autumn colour tho - so there are plusses and minuses

moyogijohn wrote:You have got yourself a very beautiful tree !!! it also has a great history to go with it.. look at it like you say till next year then began to styleto make it your tree!!!! very nice take care john

thanks John, yes i totally agree - no rush to start on the tree - i will wait until the winter image, prune all the little dead twigs that are under the canopy and shorten any long straight bits.

long term i may reverse the tree, or style it for one side summer image and the reverse for winter maybe?? i'm thinking it wise to take cuttings and a few air layers as the option in years to come to add a few more grafted trunks may appeal. - if not they certainly wont be wasted ! .

my plan for the immeadiate years to come will be to hopefully refine the image Dan hoped for when he first recieved the tree, nearly 30 years ago

Nice tree Marcus!

Btw, that's "kiyo" hime. Just wanted to throw that out there in case others start looking for one.

R

Wonderful tree. I'm sure it'll make a wonderful specimen in no time. I wish it was on my benches.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!
Sam

A dream project Marcus... I will certainly flag this one in anticipation of your winter images.
Enjoy.

Simply beautiful specimen! I want one!
Best,
Todd

wonderful tree!

thanks for all the comments,

looking out the window at the tree I had to have a little prune and do a bit of wiring !!

first off i brushed the moss off the trunk and cleaned out the little feeder roots that were growing between the main roots, then a clean with a nylon brush and running water to expose the root flare.



Next was a quick picture looking up from underneath at the canopy with the sun filtering through



Now i added 3 guy wires, one to ease the crown across and two to lower middle branches into the big holes. Then using 2mm aluminium wire i've gently and loosely wired a few branches to break up the solid masses. No branches snapped so it has been a good day !. Next was some major thinning out - cutting some branches out totally and removing the lower branches from under many of the pads - this has added some space and definition and i feel has moved the tree in the right direction from the first picture.



I like the original front now !

Brilliant! much nicer...... that's a beautiful tree you have there.

beautiful tree . kiyohime maple is one of my favorites

bruce

remarkable color.

Very nice tree, Part of Bonsai history in the UK. Which book does it feature in? "Bonsai - Step by step to growing success" Just about to re read my well thumbed copy!

Is the Pot made by Dan?

hi, thanks.
its in 'The bonsai book' the definitive illustrated guide (with the hawthorn on the cover) page 18 and page 55. please let me know if its in the other book too. The pot in the book is still in the private collection of the guy that sold me the tree as it is way too small now. This pot is one of the very large ovals from walsall studio ceramics, made by David Jones (his stamp is in the bottom), though i'm not sure if they do these really big ovals still?

here is a pic from 2 or 3 days ago



the Autumn colours are coming through now