Japanese Maple Questions

jonto

Hi Folks,

I'm new to Bonsai and have spent the past several months reading and following the news groups and working with several smaller nursery picked bushes/trees.

I just picked up a Japanese Maple (Shaina) thats about 36" tall. The potting soil is a heavy dark compost and is not root bound but looks like it should be replaced soon.

I found a 15" X 5" round ceramic pot and thought I'd move the tree into it with 60% SuperSoil and 40% gravel/Pumice. Should this be Ok for a season of growth and settling in?

I checked AutoZone and their oil pickup was 100% Diatomacious Earth and they said to try Napa for the clay version. Which should I use for Bonsai?

I want to do some triming to get down to about 24" high and to a rough design and then see how it grows and develops over the next few months. I like the cloud/open design best and want to work towards this. Should I do both root trim and limb trim now and should I remove all of the existing soil from the root ball prior to transfer?

Thanks for your help and comments.
Jim

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j_maple.jpg (53.7 KB, 181 views)

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TreeBay

I see potential --

Try photographing from a lower point so you can just see the top of the soil line and step back a bit. This is currently a helicopter view

One interesting view might be rotating the pot about 25 degrees counterclockwise.

Regards,

Matt

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jonto

Heres a different angle.

Jim

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j_maple2.jpg (39.8 KB, 163 views)

Carl_Bergstrom

Seems like quite a nice piece of material. Go ahead and feel free to remove all of the old soil when you repot early this spring. I don't see any harm in doing your trunk chopping and pruning at the same time, as long as you keep root and top reduction roughly in proportion to one another.

I look forward to seeing this tree in the spring.

Best regards,
Carl

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TreeBay

It looks like you're budding out already, so the time for repotting is coming to an end. I checked the weather there, I could only see one week, but it looks about the same as here. I'm a little surprised at the growth you've had.

Super Soil can get super soggy in shallow containers. I usually don't use anything that will go through a window screen, and about 1/3 of your supersoil probably will, because it's play sand sized.

The calcinated clay kind of product is the one you want - it's a gypsum product fired hard. You can also find it for sale as Turface, but you should probably sieve screen that as well. You could use it for about half your mix with an fine orchid bark and #3 or larger sand making up the balance. Scotts sells a turface like product I think under the name Terra-Green, but you need to be careful because the sell products in the same line as a topdress that include fertilizer. It would have an N-P-K rating on it and you wouldn' t want to use that and plant your tree in fertilizer.

Trimming the way you are talking about doing (to 24 inches, or even less) is fine, but you had best get onto it if you are pushing growth it will be harder on the plant.

Regards,

Matt

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Carl_Bergstrom

Oh, is that this year's growth? I assumed it was left over from last fall. The idea of have pushing buds on anything this time of year seems laughable to those of us living in Seattle.

Cheers,
Carl

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