Bask in the glory of a young Trident maple opening its youngest generation of leaves. This article features various photos of this small tree from my bonsai collection.
People are often fascinated by things that are young. Babies, puppies, kittens, etc.. In the same way, I look at small trees with a pride and hope that it will be capable of using all of the youthful energy to build a wonderful life, and possibly a legacy.
The Trident Maple variety of maple trees is treasured by bonsai enthusiasts because of its unique traits. When grown as a cutting, alongside many other cuttings, it has the ability to meld the wood into one, and combine into a singular trunk when held tightly together. Grafting is much easier to do on a Trident maple, because the cut wood heals so well into the new wood.
Trident maples get their name because of the shape of the three-lobed leaves. There are other maples that also have leaves of this shape. Be sure you are starting with a cutting from an actual Trident maple tree if you want to utilize it for bonsai grafts. Once you have one growing, it will forever be available to clone into more tree cuttings.
I never get tired of starting things over again at the beginning. For me that is the easy part, and the beginning of creating something is always the most fun to do. Finishing things is the hard part for me. Often times I prefer to observe and wait, and see what I can learn from the situation as it makes some progress on its own.
Young trees like this one need little help. They have the stuff inside them already to develop quite well on their own. Give them access the sunlight and some water, and it will do the rest.
Below I found some later photos of this tree as new leaves were emerging.
And the later leaves have taken on new colors completely unlike its summer coat.
Historical Information
ID: 0035
Nickname: Unnamed
Type: Trident Maple
Age: 1 year
Grown: cutting
Last repotting: Never
Wired: Never
In the article linked below, I wrote about the original club meeting I attended in which we took cuttings that this tree was grown from.
Be sure to follow my work this week. I'm in the process of sharing the whole host of bonsai trees in my collection. There is over thirty trees I am growing. That means you can enjoy more than a month of fresh content from @creativetruth's back porch.
Share the goodness with me.
Photos in this post are all #originalworks by @creativetruth, unless stated otherwise.
Find me on discord and chat with other tree growers, bonsai enthusiasts, and gardeners. We have quite a few accredited experts filling out our ranks, and a helpful Spanish-speaking community.
#trident #trident-maple #maple #tree-cutting #graft #seedling
This is beautiful. I thought i was already following you. Put you on my steemify. Green thumb? 😊 i failed my bonzai this year. Your blog is awesome my friend!
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Thank you. I think I started following you recently too.
I was going to ask about grafting next.... What would you be inclined to graft onto what?
I have a (full sized) medlar in my front garden, grafted onto a hawthorn. Don't know why exactly, but the hawthorn will keep contending with it, and this year particularly (depressed about fence wars in the back and hedge wars in the front) I neglected to snip the shoots off in time to find very sturdy branches having grown out of the hawthorn trunk (which has graft at 1.50: the bulge before the crown). This gave me much food for thought. The hawthorn hardly seems totally convinced about its sacrificial role. I wonder if the two could ever live in harmony together (so a bit of hawthorn activity in the nether regions while the fairly top heavy medlar - especially in fall - continues to do very well).... How far have we the right to repress nature... ah metaphysics and gardening may well cancel eachother out in the true tree whisperer. So whisper to me, do!
I have never heard of medlar before. Clearly it is a fruiting tree.
Fruit trees are the most commonly grafted type of tree. I have a couple of apple trees I had grafted. My knife skills are not up to par, and only the grafts done by a professional sealed up and healed properly to allow the grafted branch to grow.
The rootstock is usually chosen from a hardier variety. Primarily it gives the tree certain immunities and strengths against disease and temperatures. The rootstock also determines the growth rate of the entire tree. Often times rootstocks will form suckers very easily. Prune these off completely every year, otherwise you will get branches that compete with the grafted area. Trees look a bit strange when they have more than one type of branch and leaves growing on it.
People often graft fruit trees, flowering trees, roses, and yes, even bonsai. In bonsai, sometimes they will graft a single bud onto a trunk, simply because they want to add a branch in a location where there wasn't one before. I am not that persnickety about tree style and design, but for a grafting expert, they might as well use their knowledge to benefit their efforts, right?
This tree has a beautiful vase shape, ideal for growing fruit on. The only design flaw I see is the six branches all joined at the same location. This will eventually become a weak spot for the tree, and may cause the wood to form a bulbous lump underneath. Sometimes trees grow like this forever and have no problem. During a storm be careful, as one of those limbs might be prone to break. Maybe it will be okay if the tree is kept pruned to this size.
Hawthorn has very small berries that the birds enjoy. It looks nothing like this tree. I have one excellent hawthorn in my collection if you look back through my posts.