Hey, this is going to be my first decidous broadleaf tree. I hope i got that right?
I purchased this for £600 in the UK. My location is also the UK.
I’m lookimg for advice where to keep my maple. I have attached two pictures of my garden. The sun is at the back of that fence so having my maple at the fence location will have partial shade all morning and afternoon.
Which part will be best? I have started watching Ryan neil’s videos also and peter warren stream. Just waiting on the mirai app to release the calendar for this.
Thanks
I’m in UK too - South and except heat waves my jap maples are on full sun facing south through the day. Thinking of the scarcity of sunny days this and last year I would actually avoid any shade.
I have one red maple and last year out of desperation to photosynthesise due to the lack of sunny days it turned green by August! Expecting same this year with the weather we have - no spring / forget about summer.
Lovely tree btw. Did you get it from B4me?
Hey, i’m up North Scotland - Edinburgh. All it has done for the past 2 months is rain most weeks. But we’ve had sunny days but its still cloudy and maybe the odd day with no clouds with temp about 20c. So i would be safe to leave it in the most sunny spot in my garden?
Would be great to see your maple? Yeah i got it from Harry at B4me
Vernon
Yeah, your maple should be definitely okay in those conditions. You will also learn from one year to another. They tend to need more protection the year of repotting - scorched leaves is the danger but again it is rather wind than sun however probably protect from midday sun just in case post repot.
My maples below:
Photos are from April / May. Below photos are very recent - from this morning (because I loved those drops on them) You can see both Japanese maples are perfectly healthy.
Very nice Maple’s you have here. Great job on the wiring and i like the style of your green one.
Are you applying a light does of Fertiliser just yet?
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Thank you! It’s been three seasons I’m focusing on wiring and still making many mistakes.
The green - styled was already bonsai when I bought it but did some drastic changes including shortening the tree, still in development tbh. I applied two medium applications of fertiliser - biogold. Usually I stop for the summer until late August and did so this year too in spite of no summer 
The red one is £10 tesco maple and was green when purchased and surprised me next year hehe. Three years in large but shallow pot and the trunk thicken nicely, in bonsai pot since this spring. Sadly I underestimated one day the strength of the wind and it got knocked off the bench. Casualty - lost two branches hence it looks so leggy.
The last not so interesting is the first tree I ever bought when I knew nothing ab bonsai cca 12 years ago. It was green seedling stick size of a pencil with 10 leaves. Its an ugly duckling but I’m sentimentally attached to it. I did all sort of practice on it and it forgave me everything from nearly killing it with my first ground layering to first prunning, absolutely horrendous wiring etc 
Yours is a good size tree, liking the mature nebari and trunk ! Post some photo once it drops leaves please. Curious to see branching . Harry does some great work without ever being an apprentice in Japan!!
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Got to love those Tesco trees, I bought another one at the weekend, a twin trunk with what feels like a good radial root flare. Good job no one notices me poking my finger into the roots to check!
Yep, it’s always a mission to dig into the pot without looking suspicious followed by doing the rest of shopping with soiled fingers haha.
Good material also since you can get cheap material if you are patient to wait few years while it thickens plus unlike in garden centres these are not always grafted !
Tell me about it. I have a raw cheap JWP material so been wiring that over the years.
I’ve just applied a light dosage of Biogold to my maple as it’s hardened off now. Its very much ramified with its small leafs and fine branches so i prefer to give it some energy just now incase the last owner kept it small and weak. I seen no trace of nitrogen or organic feed on the soil so i’m just giving the tree energy even if it doesn’t need it best to just be safe with new material
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Looking inside of the upper trunk that leads to the canopy. Quite a few structural flaws i see already. 3 branches coming off the main trunk. So once at leaf fall i will need a big cut but unsure what to keep…
This was one of the main reasons I shortened mine - it had 5! Thick primary branches coming from one junction at the apex .
Post leaf drop will be good for you to make decision on which one to chop off. Simply wrap each of them with towel/white cloth/kitchen towel to see how the tree looks like without it and it will give you directions .
Also, I was catching up on some newsletters and blogs and here is the latest from Harry H.. It specifies temperature when to action and protect sensitive trees like many broadleaf incl maples. Also you find what I already wrote earlier. It’s worth to keep an eye on his advices if you want to educate yourself further as it is for UK specifically plus based on many years of experience.
Hey, autumn time will be best to come back and fix any structural flaws. But i’ve just done Japanese partial defolation and its opened it up nicely and you can see the structure much better. I done some light prunning also removing small branches of 3 down to 2. Any small branches growing upwards on the branches and anything not contributing to the design.
Harry got back to me and said one of those branches will have to go in the future
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Just finished off the partial defoliation.
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Hey guys,
Would you agree this branch looks artificial and just been placed into a fan spread shape? Looking to takeaway a branch this autumn to reduce the overall spread of the fan shape.
I was thinking of removing the white one and keep the left. The red circle branch can be left to grow next year to get thickness?
You have to reduce threes to twos so I agree. Wire at leaf drop. Beautiful tree
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Hi,
With the top branch that you circled in red there is a left branch coming off the primary at 90* angle is this acceptable for primary and secondary branching?
Generally you want an acute (<90 degree) angle between the two branches when a branch bifurcates with both have an obtuse (>90 degrees) angle to the main branch. So, in this case, I would remove the smaller branch that is at 90 degrees to the main branch. There are cases which break this convention - the tertiary branches of flat top bald cypress comes to mind.
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Hey,
I’m just watching a maple stream and this maple that Ryan is working on has a 90* angle
Good pickup. But if that junction on Ryan’s tree had three instead of two and had the potential for inverse taper he might have removed the 90 degree branch . Your tree you need to remove one. The two branches with acute angles are thick and the 90 degree is thinner and finer ramification is desired. . Pros and cons to both. But one has to go
