woodturning _ beautiful fiber of coconut wood

Hi everyone, Nigel Saunders here. Today I'm going to be working on a pair of maples, my trident maple and my field maple. I last worked on these trees in June of last year where I defoliated them and pruned them up. And today I'm going to be doing a winter pruning to get that structure on track for spring growth. Here is a look at the two trees. I've got my trident maple here which still has some leaves on it and my field maple over on the right hand side. I'm going to begin with my trident maple. This maple was developed from a young seedling. It's been root pruned to get that nice radial root base. It's been pruned to start kind of a structure, a branch structure to the tree. So today I'm going to have a look at it and just do any pruning that's required to set it up for spring growth. My goals for this tree is to grow it in a realistic kind of maple type structure. And you might say well it's just a young seedling, a stick in a pot. Why not just let it grow and thicken up and develop? My answer to that is I want to grow it slowly and carefully. Slowly it'll get bigger every year. Controlling that branch structure so as it grows you don't have to do any really drastic cuts to it. That the structure is slowly built slowly and carefully so you get a really nice high quality tree far into the future. On this tree I already have a nice branch off to the left hand side. My main trunk comes up and it divides into two major branches here. There's a third one out the back so it already has a nice basic primary branch structure on the tree. So today I'm just going to clip it back, shorten all these straight inner nodes using directional pruning. Getting it pruned up and then it should flush out in spring and continue with nice flowing branch lines. I'm going to begin the pruning now. So I have kind of a leader coming out the front here. I have some nice upright kind of vertical growth continuing the trunk line upwards which is good. I want to prune these branches so they're a little more compact. You can see here I have buds in here at the base of this branch. I have another set of buds up here about halfway, another set here, another here and then my branch tip. So I could prune it you know right back starting this branch again but I think this inter node length is still okay. So I'm just going to prune the tip off leaving a little bit of a stub for die back here. On this branch I have a strong set of buds at the base here, kind of a straight length and then another set of buds here where I pruned it previously in mid-summer. On this branch I think the pruning is okay. I think if these buds develop into more branches I think it'll be fine. I could prune it back and develop these ones but I think you know it's too close. I think I need some some length to the branches so I'm just going to prune off a stub here. I'll remove these lower leaves just to clean it up a bit. So I think this branch is fine. I'm going to take this leaf off. This one comes up. I've got a set of buds back here and some here and then I pruned it here. So again I think these buds are fine to develop up here so I don't need to prune this branch back to this set of buds which are really close to where the branch starts. There are some buds at the base here I'm going to remove. I don't want those to develop. It'll just cause swelling in that area. I'll get too many branches coming out from one spot. I think I will also remove these buds back here so I don't get those developing either. I'll just rub them off my finger like that so these buds out at the tip here will develop now. The branch behind here, this one, I've got a set of buds here and then a strong set up higher. Now on this one I think to get a little variation I will prune off these upper buds and develop these ones. So I'll prune it off here like that. I'm not going to touch this vertical growth here. I think that's good. I do have a bud coming out here I'm going to remove. I don't want to develop that. So that kind of cleans up the upper part of this tree. This back branch here I have a bud coming off 90 degrees here which I do not like. So I'm going to remove that one like that. I want it to develop out here and then I've got buds here. I'll rub those ones out removing those. I have another set of buds here and then the tip buds. So in this case I'm just going to remove those tip buds and develop these these ones here. My lowest branch I've got a stub up here I can prune back like that and then I have buds here and some at the tip and I think the tip ones are fine. I'm just going to let that continue to develop. I do have some buds at the base of the branches here that I'll rub out. I don't want those developing in spring. Make sure all my branch junctions here are clean of buds so I don't get any buds developing where I don't want them. Just kind of cleaning that all up like that and that's got my trident maple all pruned up. It's ready for growing in spring. I'll rotate the maple around so you can see it from all angles. So here I go coming around to the right hand side. I do have kind of close to opposite branches here but this one's staggered a bit. I think it's fine. There's the back the left hand side and back to the front and I'm not sure where the front would be maybe maybe somewhere more here. Here is a look at my field maple. So I think the field maple grew a little stronger than the trident maple this summer. It put on a lot of quite strong growth. There's a lot of areas like up here I've got four branches growing from one spot so I'll have to pick my best branches. I'm pleased with the taper of the trunk. I think it looks very natural. It's not too exaggerated. So let's get pruning up the field maple now. These type of videos where I take a small seedling and slowly develop it into a nice tree they're not the most exciting or dramatic videos in the world but I hope it documents the process of taking like a seedling that's just a stick in a pot slowly developing branch structure and I hope you eventually see it become a nice mature bonsai. I'm going to begin the pruning of the field maple now. So if I follow the trunk line up here is my first kind of major branch and I have a few smaller branches that have grown in down below. You can see there's two on this side and one on this side. They're kind of opposite branches. If I wanted to keep these branches I would prune off the two on this side because I have the branch on the right here and then this major branch on the left. But I think you know I want my first branch division to be at least up to here. I think these branches are too low so I'm going to remove them. So here I go. There's one gone. Two, three and there's a bud there cleaning up. There's also some buds down low here. There's three buds. I'll show you those. So right down low on the tree here there's three buds that have come out and these will develop into branches if I don't remove them and I am going to remove them. I'll just rub them off with my hand like that. Cleaning up that trunk line so I don't get branches growing from the lower part of the tree. If I did want you know a trunk with exaggerated taper or massive taper I would leave those branches to grow. It would thicken up the lower part of the trunk and then I could prune them off at a later date. But I'm very happy with the taper on this tree. I have another bud here that's growing on the sort of the inside of a curve. I'll rub that one out so that one's gone. Out the back here I have another bud that I'll rub off keeping that trunk line nice and clean so nothing develops in spring. I'm coming up the trunk now so here's my sort of major branch here that I'm going to keep and I have an opposite branch that's formed on the other side so I'm going to remove that one. I don't want three branches growing from one spot on the trunk there and then this branch you can see I have a horizontal branch here and I have some vertical growth. I do want this branch to reach upwards. I don't want it to be a flat horizontal branch. I want it more of an upright maple style so I'm going to prune this lower one off shorter so I'll prune halfway between the nodes to there. I've got a stub I can remove here from the last time I pruned it like that and then I've got to decide this one is going vertical it's kind of parallel to the trunk so I think it's too vertical so I'll take that one off. That leaves me with this branch dividing into two here which I think is fine. I think because these branches are growing more vertical than this one these should grow with more vigor than this lowest branch so they'll eventually take over and give me that upright branch style. So I think that branch is all pruned up so let's go up now to the next major branch here and again you can see there's an opposite branch growing in on the tree there so I don't want opposite branches so I'll prune that one off like that and then I need to prune up this branch here. So I have a branch pointing down which I don't like I'm going to take that off. Eventually as I grow the canopy out I will have branches that grow downwards but it's too early right now I'm just building upright structure. So this branch comes out and I have lots of buds on it I'll show you the branch up close. So here is that branch I've got you know buds back here I've got buds here I've got a vertical shoot here the branch divides into two here and then I have buds at the tip also so lots of buds on this branch. So I do want this branch to grow upright right now it's a little flat so I think this vertical growth is kind of important and I'm thinking of pruning off the end of the branch and developing this vertical one. If I were just to prune this branch off here I might get dieback and I might lose that vertical branch so I think in this case it's a better idea to play it a little safer and prune these ones off short here and here like that as this branch develops and gains vigor and then I can come in and prune off this branch tip. But until then I'm going to leave it on. I will rub out some of these buds there's one on the top here there might be one on the bottom yeah rub that out there's some at the base of the branch I'll rub out don't want those developing. So I've got two horizontal branches or buds back here that will develop into branches I think they're okay I will prune off the two buds at the tip here and then I will as I said prune this off eventually once this gains vigor. So that's got that branch pruned up now there is almost there is another shoot coming at the base of that branch here that I need to remove so I'll take that one off also. If these branches were getting too thick it may be possible to replace them with the thinner branch but because they're going to be upright structure they will be sort of the same diameter as the trunk lines they will become sort of vertical trunks. So I don't think thickness will be a problem in these primary branches. So now I'm going up the trunk to my major division here where it divides the trunk from one into two. The one out the front is the one that I'm developing sort of as my front branch you can see this is sort of the front view here and this one will be a smaller kind of back branch. So this one you know I hope it gains vigor and becomes thicker than this back one eventually. So on this back one I've got a lot of new growth at the branch tip here and you can see there's some crossing in here I'll remove it's kind of pointing back in towards the center of the tree rather than flowing outwards from the trunk. So here I always want my branches to divide from one to two so I need to pick my two best flowing branches that kind of flow smoothly in with the branch line and it's definitely not this one going out the bottom so I'll remove that one and it's definitely not this one up here it comes out 90 degrees to the branch it doesn't flow at all. So that leaves me with one branch over here and one over here and I think those are the best branches so I'll remove all these buds that are forming in between those branches kind of cleaning them up to develop these two growing tips. So it's kind of ugly the tip of this branch right now but I think as these grow and extend it'll smooth out eventually. Off this back branch I've got a branch growing from the base of that branch here I'll remove I've got a bud back here I'll remove another one there and then I've got a couple growing here I don't think I want those and I don't think I want this one either so this one's going to come off and this one's going to come off and this one's going to come off like that. I could leave this one on developing sort of a more horizontal branch coming off of my branch that angles upwards so I will I'll leave that one on. I've got a bud on the base of this branch here I'll remove then I'm coming up I've got one on the inside of bud here I can remove I don't want growth kind of cluttering up this division here in between. So that brings me up to my main kind of leader facing forward so on that branch I have a bud in here that I don't want or do I? It could be a division. I'll leave that one there. I will definitely I'm going to shorten I've got a vertical stub here and I've got to decide which I want to keep either this vertical one or this horizontal branch and I think again because I'm growing upright structure I'm going to prune this lower one off short clean up my stub in between here like that and then as this develops I could prune off this lower branch but for now I'm leaving it. There's a bud on the bottom here I can rub out right there there's one here I can rub out and then I'm going to follow this branch out so it comes out and it divides into two divisions there so I don't want all this clutter at this branch junction so I'm cleaning those out I'm going to rub the buds off that are growing around that junction here keeping that branch division cleaner I'll take out my center stub here there's one growing in the bottom I'll clean out so you can see now the branch divides from one to two here again it divides from one to two so that's good I don't have to touch that part of it there is a bud I can remove here and there's probably one on the opposite side yeah that I can rub off so that leaves me with this branch here now which comes out and divides from one to four so I need to pick my most flowing branches and they will be definitely not the one that comes straight out the front so I'll take that one off right off like that these two do flow really nicely this one doesn't so I'll remove this one and then this one extends I've got buds here buds here buds here maybe buds there buds here and at the tip so I'm going to reduce it back I'll keep these set of buds here so I'll prune off the tip right here this back one I've got a stub here I can clean up like that so I've already pruned this tip and it's divided from one to one I haven't got a subdivision yet I've got buds here so I'll prune this tip off to there and that has got my field maple pruned up now I do have a bud here I'm not sure I want that but I'm going to leave it there for now so let's have a look at it now I'll rotate it around so here's a look at the front of the tree I'll come around to the right hand side and the front could change in the future it's not set in stone and then coming around to the back around to the left hand side and back somewhere to the front here's some examples of some seedlings that are a little more developed in my sort of pinging here these are native red maples and you can see how they're a little more advanced they've got a little more of that upright structure yeah so that's sort of what these the trident maple and the field maple will look like in the future as they get a little more developed I've turned the heat back on in the greenhouse here it's quite cool today it is three degrees celsius in the greenhouse three degrees above freezing which is just ideal for overwintering trees especially the more sensitive trees like trident maples the greenhouse is quite frosty today all the side windows are all covered in ice the roof is covered in a layer of snow but the trees are quite happy one of the goals of my channel is to show the development of bonsai from seedlings to mature trees so I hope in the far future you'll be able to look at the playlist of these trees follow the progression and see how they began to hopefully eventually a mature looking bonsai so there's not a lot of channels out there that show the entire progression so that's one of the goals of my channel is to show that process and also that I really enjoy the process of developing bonsai you know developing the beginnings into something that's really cool looking I've got my two maple seedlings pruned up they're ready to grow in spring so this kind of winter branch selection and bud selection is important because the more work you do over the winter the less work you have in spring so these are just ready to go out on the bench and they'll just start growing and I'll know all that new growth coming in is good growth it's not stuff that I'll be pruning off in the future so that is all for today I'm Nigel Saunders thanks for joining me in the bonsai zone