Help With A Wounded Lace Maple

moki

Well, it appears that the lace maple I bought from late last summer suffered a bit more from my trip to France during which my friend didn't water it for 10 days (long story, it was a mixup)... here's what it looked like then:



...and then I finally gave up on the branches that were truly dead, and trimmed them off; it looks like this now:



I didn't trim anything that was living. Is there anything I should be doing other than carefully watering it? I've tried the fertilizer pellets I bought in Japan, but the squirrels just eat them, so I've been using a mixture of miracle gro once every two weeks.

Anyone who has any suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, additional bonsai/suiseki pics are available here:

http://people.AmbrosiaSW.com/~andrew/bonsai/

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/

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TreeBay

Ouch! I feel for you. That was a lovely tree. At one of our club Open House events somebody sat next to one of my large container maples (Crimson Queen) and snapped a big branch off right at the trunkline.

The answer was to do a thread graft to replace the missing limb. I used a drill to pierce the trunk and threaded through a long branch from another location. It "took" very quickly and within 2-1/2 years it was indistinguishable from the rest. But that was a large garden tree in a good sized container, so it was more vigorous.

Just last week my stepdaughter had some of her friends out in the gazebo and one of them must have backed into or kneed a limb on another maple because *SNAP*! So I have another "opportunity on my hands"

I would suggest that you soak that tree for at least an hour if you haven't already to completely saturate the rootball, and fertilize it lightly with Miracle gro. In the fall when it has recovered some strength, up-pot it into a slightly larger container and begin planning the thread grafts to replace the lost limbs. You can also consider at that time a possible repositioning of the trunk or planting angle might be better suited to nature's new design.

Regards,

Matt

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RonMartin(deceased)

Moki

There are a lot of things you could do, but mostly you will have to just re-grow the poor thing.
If you had listed where you lived at in your bio or at least what USDA zone you are in I might have been of more help.
Different climates require different solutions.

moki

Thanks... I'm in Rochester, NY. Very cold in winter, warm in summer.

Should I give it lots of light? Lots of water? How often to fertilize it?

__________________
Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/