What kind of maple is this?

I am wondering if someone could identify the maple ? I am planning on air layering in the spring.

Looks like Acer rubrum. Odd color, though.

looks like one of the "ornamental" A. Rubrums like you see in mail order catalogs for sale as specialty landscape trees.
-Jay

Acer rubrum "Autumn Glory", perhaps?

Thank you guys. I just added a few more pictures. The first one I took looked very "purple-ish" due to HD iPhone camera I believe.
I love the colors on the tree and hope I can air layer a few branches next spring.

Dave Murphy wrote:Acer rubrum "Autumn Glory", perhaps?

Thats the one I was thinking of i couldn't remember the name last night. Thank you.

All this said, Acer rubrum is a very difficult tree to turn into a successful bonsai. It works in group plantings (especially mixed groups) but is a tough choice for individual bonsai because of widely spaced internodes, very long petioles on the leaves, and general growth habits.

JimLewis wrote:All this said, Acer rubrum is a very difficult tree to turn into a successful bonsai. It works in group plantings (especially mixed groups) but is a tough choice for individual bonsai because of widely spaced internodes, very long petioles on the leaves, and general growth habits.

the best way I think to deal with A. Rubrum is to trunk chop a large sapling maybe a 20 footer, then begin growing your new leader, at least that way you can create a large tree to help with leaf size and internodes as Jim mentioned, But thats a very long term project.

I have also been tempted to air layer them but never tried it, I'd be curious as to how yours turns out.
-Jay

Amur maple has just as good if not better color than the tree in your picture and they bloom at an early age, and are known to work better for bonsai. They are EXTREMELY cold hardy as well. If you really like that color go with amur maple. Even a good trident wont ever have color to compare to an amur.

I had also thought to recommend an Amur maple. I saw a large specimen for the first time at Bill V.'s open house and at first I thought it was A. Rubrum. i actually had to ask to make sure it wasn't. Its a pretty close match in a lot of ways.
-Jay

I picked up an amur maple "starter" tree this spring, and was amazed at the fall color it produced. Looking forward to working with it!

Chris

you see Chris how I'm still talking about that Amur at Bills that I missed, I'm still kicking myself for not having bought it. ARGH

yall have a picture of it?

bucknbonsai wrote:yall have a picture of it?

the tree I'm referring to was bought by a fellow wearing a full business suit on a 90+ degree day with dark sunglasses and nice Italian leather shoes. He stealthed the tree out from underneath me while I was recovering from heat stroke in the garage...he waited until I was at my weakest to strike. I can only assume he was a spy or a secret agent of some kind.

As for Chris' tree.......?

I did not take any photos of the fall color (all the leaves have since dropped), if that's what you're asking. Do a google images search for "amur maple fall color", that will provide some representative photos.

Jay, there's always next year! Edited to add: oops! I guess not! I'm sure you'll be coming to the big June exhibition, maybe one of the vendors will have one for you!

Chris

yeah, i was referring to specifically to the specimen amur maple of valavanis. The spy that bought it may not have appreciated you taking any pictures of it though, he probably would have destroyed your camera.

I think that both Red maple (A. rubrum) and Amur maple (A. ginnala) make fine bonsai. I have been working on a couple of red maple and have found that if you want a large trunk specimen you will need to make it a larger tree to accomidate the leaf size and leaf peitole. If you want a small tree under 12 inches you'll have to start with a seedling, and train it from scratch to get the leaves to remain somewhat small and in scale. The trick to getting smaller internodes is to prune the bejesus out of it each fall back to dormant buds and force them to bud out. Over time they will produce quite small branches with very short internodes and eventually with smaller leaves (relatively speaking of course). I did a test this past summer to see how the red maple responds to summer defoliation and was not all that impressed with the results but more testing is still needed. My results showed that the leaf would reduce about 1/3rd and the leaf peitole reduced by 1/2 after a complete leaf pruning (I have before and after pictures and will post them if your intrested). While the results sound good on paper, I was not happy with the overall look of the tree. It looked too bunched up, and lost the gracefullness it had earlier in the year. As for fall color, Amur maple is one of the better trees in the red hues. jbelow is a picture of one of my Amur maples that is just now starting to be worked on in fall color this year.

randy I would be very interested in seeing your before and after red maple pictures. Would early spring root pruning while leaving the top alone produce shorter internodes due to less "energy" going up the trunk and multiple buds having to share that reduced amount of energy? Would this also produce smaller petioles and leaf size? Do you treat your red maples any different in regards to fertilizer to prevent large leaves etc..?

bucknbonsai wrote:randy I would be very interested in seeing your before and after red maple pictures. Would early spring root pruning while leaving the top alone produce shorter internodes due to less "energy" going up the trunk and multiple buds having to share that reduced amount of energy? Would this also produce smaller petioles and leaf size? Do you treat your red maples any different in regards to fertilizer to prevent large leaves etc..?

I'm not sure that an early spring root pruning would do much to reduce the leaf size or peitole size unless you did some level of drastic root pruning that could harm the health of the tree which I'm not in favor of myself. In addition, it could have an impact on the flowering season of the tree as well. I'll be root pruning this tree (shown below) early next spring (after flowering) and will keep an eye on it now that you mention it and we'll see what the results look like. I have spent most of my time working on ramification of the tree to encourage smaller growth on the pads and have found that prunning is the key to success. Red maples seem to put out strong termnal growth on the strong branches and cutting those parts of the branch back regularly both forces it to set smaller multiple (2) terminal buds one of which will become stronger in time but it will also force buds further back on the branch to bud which will remain smaller making for a denser pad. Constant summer pruning of the strong branches and then a fall pruning after leaf drop of the strong growth encourages ramification. Over the next few years, I'll do more testing to satisfy my curiosity on techniques.

Before defoliation (5/14/11)

After defoliation

Re-leafed out (6/24/11)

After leaf drop (10/31/11)


I should note here that I also did this on a small 10" tree and the results were pretty much the same but the leaves were smaller to begin with.

Randy-

Do you recommend wiring Maples in the fall? and if so when do you usually remove the wire? Have you ever had issues with scarring when wiring in the fall. I thought to do it in early summer after the growth slowed down to hopefully avoid wire marks.

I agree the Red looked much better before the leaf removal, I've run into the same phenomena with both Beech and Euonymus.
-Jay

I think when in leaf the predefoliation tree looked better, but when not in leaf the tree should look better after defoliation techniques. I think this may be one of those species that is grown mainly for its winter display/spring with pretty red buds display. A lot of the great very ramified maples look great in winter and in summer they are just a messy green blob.

drgonzo wrote:Randy-

Do you recommend wiring Maples in the fall? and if so when do you usually remove the wire? Have you ever had issues with scarring when wiring in the fall. I thought to do it in early summer after the growth slowed down to hopefully avoid wire marks.

I agree the Red looked much better before the leaf removal, I've run into the same phenomena with both Beech and Euonymus.
-Jay

Jay,

I always wire deciduous trees in the fall and remove the wire in mid to late May (Kentucky weather). I have found that if you watch carefully, most trees will put on girth at or close to the end of the spring growth just as the current seasons leaves have matured (with a few exceptions like bald cypress which puts on it's girth just as fall approaches). By watching the trees growth carefully and timing the wire removal you'll minimize any gurdling. Smaller gauge wire when wrapped to tight will always girdle first. With the Red maple, I've had some branch girdling but it will usually disappear after 2 or 3 years if it's growing strong. While Red maple will never perform like the traditional bonsai maples (trident for example), it will make a very nice tree if you work with its natural habit of growth. I rather like the gracefullness of the leaves in the early spring, but like bucknbonsai said, the early flowering season is the best time to view the tree in my opinion. It's too bad that here in the U.S. we neglect to have shows to display flowering trees in the very early spring which would be the best time to show a red maple when it's bare of leaves but loaded with those lovely red flowers followed by the hanging seeds.