A.palmatum " bloodgood "

DwightFloyd

Picked up this little maple at Lowes of all places. They claim it's a bloodgood but who really knows. I chose it thinking I might be able to make a twin trunk out of it some day. I'm not lookin for styling advice as it's so far away. What I'm looking for is hortacultural advice. I's a graft and the graft is pretty high so I'M trying to find a way to either lower the trunk ( raise the roots ) or eliminate the graft completely. I'm thinking of a form of ground layer so I've placed it in a " 15 " gal nursery pot. I didn't take it out of the pot , just cut off the top a few inches and cut some slots in the sides. It seems to have handled this fine. I didn't nick the trunk or use any rooting hormone as I just want to make life as easy as possible for the poor thing here in the desert.

Right now I have it located so that it receives about three hrs of morning sun but I think even thats too much as I have a lot of leaf burn. I've never seen a maple here that didn't have leaf burn even under a nursery cloth unless it was in almost complete shade. Soooooo I'm thinking of moving it under my mondale pines where it might get an hours sun each day.

Any advice will be appreciated.

Attached Images

IMG_0669.JPG (63.7 KB, 97 views)

__________________
Just a beginner....just because I'm old doesn't mean I know squat

Advertisement

Globalist1789

To ground layer the top off you need to sinch a wire around the base and bury it to that the wire is 3-4 inches under the soil. Don't prune it and as the trunk fattens the wire till bite harder and harder until the tree puts out new root above the wire. Once those are in place, and at the right time of year, you lift the tree and cut off the old root ball, graft union and all.

The other option it to airlayer a bit of the bloodgood off the tree this year and then you can keep the root stock. 2 for 1, but you can talk all the Bloodgood off the root stock this way or the root stock (which is in my guess a seed grown acer palmatum) will have no energy stored for next spring.

Michael, the

DwightFloyd

Sounds like the ground layer is the way to go. I can even do this more than once if I need to right ? BTW , how long will this process take ?

__________________
Just a beginner....just because I'm old doesn't mean I know squat

Marie1uk

Red leaved forms are less vigourous and can take up to two years to root.

__________________
Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand.

Every morning is the dawn of a new error.

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.