Hi all!
I’m a new member and interested in your feedback on my conundrum. Firstly, I have a bloodgood maple that I got from Costco before being interested in the craft of bonsai. Its a interesting piece for me because there is a piece of the graft that’s growing so it gives a different color contrast. I do recognize and understand that the grafted piece will be more vigor and aggressive than the upper portion and will need to keep it more in check.
I want to do a structural reduction just like Ryan’s video posted on November 7, 2023. My conundrum is that the roots are now growing into the ground. Do I do a repot? if so, when? Or do I do the structural reduction in the fall, knowing that the roots are fine, allow the tree to recover and then repot?
Thank you for your advice and please be kind
I also want to clarify, I still want to develop it in a bigger nursery pot. Also here are some photos as it is currently
Hello. Great opportunities with your maple. Congrats. You shouldn’t repot til bud push next spring. I’d do something about that cluster of branches circled now or your inverse taper would worsen. I’d cut down pot rim so you can see nebari and send new pictures at leaf drop. My two cents regards gary
Hi Gary, thanks for your input! ill check out that location later on and ill update
I’ve played around with this idea (multi sub species grafted) but never taken myself up on it. I’m curious if you have a long term plan in having 2 different foliage colors/types? Or is more of just a horticulture experiment and you plan to take it as it comes?
There’s a dogwood in the landscape near me that’s slowly but gracefully reverting to the ungrafted foliage/flower which is one I might try to recreate in miniature
When you repot, be sure to work on the nebari. You want to encourage “plating” around the base. The idea is to get the roots to spread out horizontally in a shallow-ish container, such as an Anderson flat. Perhaps you already know this.
My original plan since there’s two branches of rootstock from the main trunk, was to airlayer one of the branches and keep in check the other so it wouldn’t kill the grafted bloodgood, but I’m debating about it for now
Your gut is correct, you have to get the green maple suckers off the trunk, they are so vigorous they will out compete the grafted cultivar and kill it ! You can already see the size of the green suckers! There nearly the size of the bloodgood trunk! You can air layer those off quickly and get the root graft under control! You could also air layer off the bloodgood graft - it will survive fine on its own roots! Good luck!
So my two cents is to keep those roots growing into the ground, it will continue to thicken the truck. You can still prune and wire as needed. I’ve had trees in plastic pots root into the ground for 6-7 years before I sawzall them out of the ground and the pot, you’ll get 3-4 times the caliper as in a pot alone. Same thing an be done with Anderson flats. I wish I had done this 25 years ago when I was just getting into Bonsai.