Acer campestre No.3 first styling

This maple tree was collected from the wild a few years ago and was sitting and waiting until there was the right time. It was regularly pruned back and after new growth emerged unnecessary stuff was removed. There is a big scar on the trunk since it was originally growing next to the wired fence which damaged the bark significantly. Now a few days ago I worked scars with Dremel and wired branches and I can wait for new foliage. 

Acer campestre No.2 in new pot

Maple was repotted into its first ceramic pot. Rather small, I wish I had a bit bigger but I run out of suitable pots after repotting fifteen trees this spring. I tell you I had cold feet doing some drastic root work back in March. But tree fitted into the pot and I was waiting for its response. As you can see on April pictures tree does not think pot is too small. I'm happy for now, I will kut back the top in few weeks and let the side shots elongate for a bit longer. Still, the tree is rather a new project collected only in 2014, so it needs a decade or two to shine. 

in a previous plastic pot in 2018

First plastic pot, picture from 2017 I guess

Acer campestre No.2

You can see the actual picture of the Field maple. It looks like it was defoliated and new leaves are just emerging. Well, it is not the case. I will come to this later. Let me just quickly recap its history during last few months. 

The tree was repotted in March and from the rather large plastic bowl, it went into much smaller one. In case there was any ceramic pot at hand at that time it could go into one, but there was nothing suitable. During the repotting, I did quite a lot of root work on it.  A lot of clay like soil from original collection site was removed. It was substituted with a much lighter mix of pumice, lava rock, zeolite and rough peat with the addition of Osmocote fertiliser as always. 

And tree loved it and grew like crazy for two months. Then, as usual, bloody ants brought aphids and other beasts and start to parasitise on its juices. On few leaves, mildew started to appear to make it more fun. Since I'm not using insecticides I decided to apply some biological weapon. Luckily, I had freshly delivered neem oil product (not dedicated for horticultural use) and I decided to apply it. Made 1% solution and sprayed the tree and others as well. For first few days everything seemed to be OK. But maple started to show signs of some kind of fungal problem on the bottom of the leaves. Few of them went yellow. No big deal, I thought. They just fall off and new will emerge.  

I went for a weekend trip with family at that time.  After I came back, I did the usual check of the trees in the garden. Everything seemed to be OK, except this maple. 

More leaves were infected, white spots on the underneath of the leaves were abundant all over the tree. I touched any leave, it just fell off. Next day it was even worse. Following day all leaves were gone, even the smallest ones. It was beginning of June. 

Hmm, this is a problem. I did not know what happened, but I was suspecting strong fungal infection or mistreatment with neem oil. Honestly, I was pissed at myself. Checked the tree regularly, but it looked bad. 

After a couple of days, during a visit to the garden and checking the tree status, I heard something.

I could not recognise the sound despite I tried hard. I bent closer to the tree and listened even more thoughtfully. 

I could not believe my ears. 

I was almost sure I distinguished the sound.

And it was Santa Fe church bells ringing out...I heard them almost clearly...big bells ringing...I could not believe it. Looked around and thought maybe someone is watching Winnetou: The Last Shot movie. But no, the sound was not coming from any of the opened neighbouring windows... 

Suddenly, at that moment I realized what it meant...  

....the tree was dying... 

...I was down. Almost like Old Shatterhand was back then, when Winnetou was dying.

I knew I could not do anything for the tree anymore. I just keep watering it like I do all dead trees for a week or two, just in case miracle will happen. 

And then, one morning I saw them. New buds, typical red maple buds. It was an amazing feeling. Looked like the tree is waking up from passing and will make it. I checked it on next day, just to be sure, but it was clear, the buds were much bigger. After another two days, new tiny leaves developed. Hallelujah. It was alive. 

I was so happy at that moment.

I just could not understand those bells.

I must have had some kind of daydream or illusion ... or I thought, maybe the sound of Santa Fe bells is not messaging for those passing away...and what if, I thought ... 

...I run back to the house and quickly looked for the Winnetou book... looked up that paragraph ... but no, Winnetou was still dead. 

What a fool I was. 

But, maybe, Old Shatterhand is still living there somewhere in the West, maybe drinking whiskey in a casino in Nevada in memory of his lost brother. Who knows.

On sacrifice

Let me tell you few words on sacrifice branches. I use example of my Field Maple I was working recently (Acer campestre No.2). Reason behind unrestricted growth of some (one or more) branches on a tree is energy generation. 

Imagine your tree is big growing City which needs a lot of energy for its occupants. It is modern Solar Power City. Branches of the tree are power cables. Closer to the trunk/city, thicker they must be to transfer energy(sugars). Leaves growing on branches are Solar Power Plants. If they receive sunshine, they produce energy(sugars). More sunshine means more energy. More energy produced by any single leave/(solar power plant), more capacity in cable(branch) connecting it to City(trunk) you need. So, when leaves on branch produce energy, they send it down, through the branch to trunk and roots. When Power Management Company (Tree) finds out branches produce more energy, than it is possible to transfer, it will send resources to thicken those parts of tree through which energy is transferred. So, Power Company people are adding more cables connecting leaves with trunk. It means all parts of tree structure between leaves and roots get thicker. 

Now, how we can use this in tree design? We are able to thicken those parts of the tree, which needs to be thicker, due to our design plan. We can grow thicker trunks, and branches, where we need them (on lower parts of the Tree usually, but it depends). So generally, longer branches we get, more leaves are on them, and thicker they will grow. We need a lot of green foliage mass to thicken the branch or trunk. Do not cut leaves from sacrifice branch. Also, more vertical branch grows more energy due to gravitation is flowing through it. In case you want to thicken some specific branch, you can wire its tip into vertical position to strengthen energy flow. 

We can also use sacrifice branches to help healing wounds on our tree. Obviously, there are trees which are able to heal cuts and wounds better (acer, quercus, tilia according to my experience)  than others (hawthorns). But generally, more energy is flowing around cut or wound, faster is cambium creation around wound and healing is therefore faster. 

Question is, how much sacrifice you have to sustain. This you have to find yourself. But I would say let it grow as much as you can, until you are sure cuts created when you cut it back will heal. It is easier said than done. 

So, back to my field maple. It was not cut back this season up until last weekend. You can see the pictures with amount of growth produced by yourself. Now tree, was cut back. Cuts were worked a bit. Majority of branches were wired. It will stay like this for couple of weeks before wires start to bite in, they will be removed. If you check previous post about this maple, last year I did more less the same. This is, according to my experience, way of building deciduous bonsai from yamadori collected material.

   

Before work

man behind the tree

...5 minutes later

One of the major wounds, with maple one can at least hope it will heal in couple of years of aggressive growth of the crown.

2016 and 2017 same wound, more growth, more callus, faster healing

Acer campestre No.2

Last month maple was wired and defoliated. Now new growth is strong enough already and some wires started to bite in so all wires were removed. Most of dried stumps on end of the branches were removed. Now tree will sit on sun till autumn. Then one more reduction of the branches will be done again. 

Acer campestre No.2

Acer was growing for some time and shots were quite long already. They were easily around meter long. It is good for gaining thickness in branches. But due to space issues I decided to cut it back even if further unrestricted growth would not hurt it anyway. So branches were shortened, almost leaves removed. Stumps were carved since they were just roughly cut during collecting. Now they are more suitable to overall design. Then all branches were wired and now I will wait for another flush of growth. Tree is still quite fresh, collected only in 2014 and it sits in large plastic bowl. But in year or two it will go into first ceramic training pot and roots will be worked at the occasion as well. Now it could look bit messy but trust me, there is nice tree hidden inside. 

After wiring and carving.

July 2016 - on beginning of the session. 

Cut back

Start of the wiring and carving

Reverse taper of the stump must be solved with power tools.

Dremel starts to work

and Makita must take over the job for tougher moments

scars on branches must be worked also

and after wiring this is current result

One of initial pictures from last year one year after collecting from wild.