Restoring an old Japanese maple
Restoring an old Japanese maple
I’d gone several years without a Japanese maple in my collection and I missed working with the variety. It’s hard, however, to find good specimen. I resigned myself to starting a tree from scratch, either by layering nursery stock or by working with an old tree that needed help. A few months ago, I found an old tree perfect for a long-term project.
The tree had long shoots in preparation for some extensive grafting. But upon a closer examination of the tree, the originally planned grafts didn’t seem to address the tree’s major flaws. The nebari is unattractive, the trunk is scarred and not particularly attractive, and there are essentially no usable branches. What potential does the tree have? The lower part of the trunk, between the nebari and the first branch, exhibits some taper without obvious scars. If I air layer the trunk an inch or two above the current roots I can create a good nebari. And by removing the top 2/3 of the tree, I can improve the taper and create well-balanced branches. Additionally, I may try to create a second tree out of the apex making this a two for one project.
Although I was anxious to get started with the air layers, I’d recently repotted the tree and didn’t want to start a layer after such a major repotting. The plan is to let new roots get established this year and keep the growth somewhat in check to prepare for an air layer or two next year.
Japanese maple – before cutback
A number of the cuts were larger than 1cm. To help them heal, I cleaned the edges of the cuts with a grafting knife.
Clean cuts
Clean cuts
I covered the cuts with cut paste and that completed the work for this year.
After cutback
I don’t expect a lot out of this tree, but it’s looking like I’ll have a lot of fun along the way. Why go to the effort on a somewhat dubious project? I’m essentially leveraging the age of the trunk. If I begin a similar project with a younger tree, I’ll have to wait longer for nice bark to develop. In the meantime, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more project maples.
What’s with the white stuff?
A visit to the GSBF Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt this spring will reveal an intriguing bonsai technique – paper-wrapped bonsai wire. I learned about the technique from the garden’s curator, Kathy Shaner, not long after she completed her apprenticeship to Yasuo Mitsuya in Toyohashi, Japan. Copper wire is more commonly used on conifers than it is on deciduous trees as copper can stain the trunks and branches of deciduous trees. The primary alternative to copper bonsai wire is aluminum. While aluminum doesn’t stain trunks or branches, it doesn’t hold as well as copper. The solution – paper-wrapped bonsai wire!
Hawthorn bonsai with paper-wrapped copper wire
Working with paper-wrapped wire isn’t bad – the trick is getting the paper on the wire. It takes a bit of practice. The paper is rolled onto a single section of wire at a time. The result is a funny looking tree – and if all goes well, there will be no scars.
Hawthorn – wiring detail
The garden does a good job of providing information about the care and maintenance of the collection. The paper-covered wire treatment elicited its own note:
What’s with the white stuff?
What you are looking at is wire that has been covered with paper. The wire is to shape the tree. The paper wrap is to protect the delicate bark from the wire. Most trees do not need to have the wire covered, as their bark is not as susceptible to wire marks. We will monitor the growth of the tree, and when the wire just starts to cut into the bark, we will remove it. If the branch does not stay where we placed it after putting on the paper wrapped wire, we will repeat the wiring. Normally one season of growth is sufficient for the branch to stay in place after the wire is removed.
Pomegranate with paper-wrapped wire, bamboo sections and irrigation lines
Pomegranate – wiring detail
The Garden at Lake Merritt’s website contains a lot of information about the trees in the collection. The weeping flowering cherry below, the site notes, is known as “shidare-higan-sakura in Japanese, or Prunus subhirtella.” It was donated by Pete and Amy Sugawara and was started some time around 1980.
Weeping flowering cherry, ‘Benihoshi’
I don’t know where one can find the paper used for this technique – which is fine, for the moment, as I have a lot of pines to wire.
Ume – cutback and grafting
Sisyphus comes to mind when I think about my ume. I’ve been working on the tree for roughly 10 years, grafting, each winter, branches with white flowers onto branches that naturally sport double-pink flowers. Because the variety doesn’t bud back like other deciduous varieties, I find myself re-grafting branches year after year. This year was no different.
I started by removing the old leaves. This is fun with ume – I strip the leaves away by lightly pinching the base of each branch and dragging my fingers toward the end of the shoot.
Before stripping the leaves
Leaves stripped
Last year I repotted the tree thinking that slowing the tree down would help the grafts take. Not so – only a few of last year’s scions took hold. This year I simply cut back the long shoots and grafted the scions into place. You can see the grafting process in greater detail in last year’s post about repotting and grafting the tree.
Apparently grafting is fun
A scion in a bag – moss maintains humidity
Grafting complete
I’m planning on repotting the tree at a different angle next year – from the current front, the trunk looks like a gnarled sling-shot. The goal is to show the tree with plenty of blossoms. I had good luck with this in 2004. The flowers all opened up at the same time and we set it by the door at our 5th Bay Island Bonsai exhibit. You can find a picture of the tree – the first one in the group – at BIB’s 2004 gallery page.
Comments Off
Fall work – Korean hornbeam
I still remember the moment I fell for Korean hornbeams. Boon had brought several to a BIB meeting when they were in fall color. Some were covered in yellows and greens – another shone orange and red. The trees were vigorous, healthy, dense, and beautiful – I set my sights on getting one.
A few years later I did. Turns out, great fall color is an occasional treat where I live – this year I got brown.
Korean hornbeam – December 4, 2010
Once most of the leaves on the tree turn brown, it’s time to remove them. This is true of all deciduous varieties. The sooner I can expose the interior buds to the light, the better.
The process of removing old leaves varies a bit from variety to variety. Hornbeam leaves release easily when they are pulled away from the end of the shoot. As I work, I’m careful to not wrap the petiole around the bud as this will strip away bud and leaf together.
Pulling the leaf back, away from the end of the shoot
Leaf removed
With the leaves gone, I can get a better sense of how the tree is developing. More than any other deciduous variety I’ve worked with, hornbeam ramify well with little prompting. A few days after removing the leaves, I brought the tree to a workshop to see about the cutback.
After removing the leaves – many new shoots appeared this year
Boon thought the tree might be full enough for show, so he took his time with the cutback. I hadn’t planned on showing the tree for some time, but as I have very poor alternatives this year, this tree may have to do.
After cutback
I planted the tree in an oversize pot last winter expressly for the purpose of letting it grow for several years. If the tree does make it to show this year, I’ll need to repot it in a more appropriately sized container.
It will be an interesting exercise to match the tree with a pot. I have a few candidates that should provide nice balance for the large trunk, but I won’t know for sure until I give them a try.
Trunk detail
Even if I do show the tree this year, my sights will remain on a target much farther out. Hornbeam look their best when they are covered with fine foliage. This tree has a long way to go – fortunately, getting there will be the fun part.
1 comment