Making Bonsai Maples

Today is the 20th of March and we're inside our unheated greenhouse and you see how advanced all my maples are. These are almost in leaf. Deshojo is coming into leaf and this is Benichidori in leaf but we are inside the greenhouse so the temperature is about maybe four to five degrees centigrade warmer than outside. This is another Deshojo. It's got a strange coppery color but once the leaves are open it'll be a bright red. So why am I showing you these pictures? Look at that another Deshojo here. I'm showing you these pictures because I'm going to work on the maples today and the maples I'm going to work on are in the open so they are about maybe two three weeks behind the ones which are in the greenhouse so I will take you out to the open area and show you what I'm about to do. Now these are maples that we've been growing in flower pots and they've been here for at least 10 to 15 years. They started off life growing in the field and as you know me I'm always doing air layering and propagating lots and lots of air layering like this one for instance. This apparently was only air layered last year. This is ordinary mountain maple I think let me see and I think these have all rooted well so these are air layering so we do propagate a great deal but the point of showing you what I'm about to do is that I feel sometimes I'm a bit too greedy and I'm forever propagating by air layering and the trees will never end up as bonsai so what is the point of it then look at this one for instance look at that it's got a lovely root base and the bonsai probably is here I could easily air lay this and get another tree here so how long do I wait that is the big question you know should I wait forever these are the difficult decisions I have to make so I could wait another year and get an air layering out of this it would be quite a nice tree let me look at another one and see what I should do and to show you the sort of dilemma I'm faced with this is we grow them in these flower pots so that we can transfer them into bonsai pots more readily but you see how it has been breaking back and the bonsai is virtually there beautiful nibari and all that and you can see the bonsai already forming here so many possibilities so what we would do is constantly keep pruning these back pruning them back so we have the makings of a very nice bonsai I can either cut it here or use that the roots here are quite interesting so this is how this would be done I'll probably just put it in a bonsai training pot and see what happens from here on so I didn't have to do a lot there are some others which I have to do more work let's look at each one and see what needs to be done okay let's look at this one these are all like 45 50 liter pots so you can see what I did we cut the top off and you see how the buds are breaking all over the place so this could be quite an interesting tree so where this root is going probably don't need it I'm going to pot it up so if I wanted to make a bonsai I would probably cut it off here that means with a silky saw we would cut it there and then let it progress so this is what we would do with this one I don't know how sharp my silky saws are the point I'm trying to make is that we have to take decisions at some point I can't let these grow forever otherwise I'll never see the end of the bonsai so this is how the bonsai is going to develop either using this as the leader or this as the leader and then we will grow the new laterals again another one we can look at is this one here every tree is interesting every tree is different look at this one this is a rather strange one I don't know whether this is a sucker or what but that's a different tree there that's another maple there so what I'm trying to show you is the way I've created the new leader here if you look at this tree you see it's chopped there and you get the new leader forming like so you see that's how the new leader forms that is the new leader and if I don't want it growing too tall I take that off take that off and hopefully it'll now bush out there and you've got the start of a new taper there let's see what's happening to this one here don't know whether this is a separate plant or a sucker from the same tree another part of this I've got another maple that's sort of leader keep walking around wherever I turn I can see the results of my work look at this one here you see how we've created the new leader here see we chopped it there and the new shoot has been allowed to grow so this is a new leader forming and these are the new branches and because I don't need to keep letting it grow endlessly I should really bite the bullet I will keep this just to pull the sap off and this is how we're going to start this like so this way so this is going to be the start of another bonsai like that let me go further on and see what else there is starting to rain but no matter let's continue there's another tree here look at this one you can see where I cut it if you have a look here you see that's I cut it and we formed a new leader there so this is growing up and then we should shorten some of these branches so this is how this tree is going to develop like so so you get the idea it's constantly chopping I don't need to turn too far and finally almost another one all these are look at this lovely one here and you see how see the distressing of the trunk gives it a natural sherry there lovely beautiful sherry there and you look at the twists and turns on this tree look at it so interesting this one is probably spoiling the line so I'll get this off I'm just going to take the back one off because here the line of the composition is getting spoiled so I'm going to take that off don't need that one so you can see how that lovely shape is emerging I can wire all these so that's the start of another bonsai so this is how we are producing all the maples so continuing with my maple projects the ones we grow in our field and then we dig them up in pots and grow them in pots we fished out quite a few maples so let me talk about some of them now I have two maples here and they are no this is a mountain maple this is a deshojo you can see these lovely red tips I wanted to show you this tree because you look at this fine root here this comes from air layering many people don't realize that air layering has many advantages and one of the great advantages of air layering is that you get a lot of these fine roots all around the perimeter of the tree instead of thick roots like that that go straight into the ground so this is from a seed or something so this has not been air lit it's just grown from a big seeding and grown big like this so when you grow from seed and grow them in the field you get thick roots but if you grow from air layering you get these fine radial roots so this is going to be a very very nice bonsai in time so I brought this in so all we're going to do is pot this up you see look at that lovely base that's the new leader I can arrange some of the branches maybe this probably cut that off and this is going to be the progression of this tree so there's not much to talk about with this tree now this tree because the roots are so interesting it could be a case for making an exposed root bonsai someone here was just suggesting that we make a root over rock but root over rock is usually done with small trees and with fine roots which are draped over the rock once the roots have become atropied like this thick you can't do much with it so all you can do is what we call a bit of cheating and insert rocks to make it appear as if it's going on a rock but they are a bit too old to grow proper root over rock so that is the sort of halfway house or what we call cheating you know fake root over rock that you're trying to make so root over rock is usually done with trees that are fine thin roots which are draped over not thick roots like this so a tree like that would be better used as an exposed root that means planted in a pot with all the roots exposed I think the Chinese are very particularly fond of this sort of style exposed root style they like the look of these weird and wonderful exotic looking roots so there you are this is going to be a nice little bonsai with branches like that an exposed root we'll put them up in a pot and show you the final results now this particular tree I show you because it's a customer's tree this customer came on Saturday to show me this tree but they wanted the roots exposed a little more so all we'll do is tease the roots more to show some more roots I'm talking about the exposed because there are people who like roots it may not be everyone's taste but you have to respect people's taste just because you don't like it it doesn't mean other people don't like it and just because you don't like it it doesn't mean that you are right other people can also be right I found that as I've become older I've learned to respect people's taste I think it's very important to do that if everything was the same the world would be so boring this is what you call the richness of diversity because this dear customer wanted exposed roots I'm going to expose some more root when I put it back in the pot so that the roots are more visible so I will keep teasing away and all I will do is expose more root and show it up so I will show the tree when it is finally done as I say it's not usually rocket science also at this time when you're doing the repotting it's always good to sort out roots that are all sort of over the place and not radial so repotting time is a very good time to sort out ugly roots or untidy roots now this is a case where it might be worth jetting some of the soil off with a hose pipe to see if I can expose more root some people in fact do that as I say in Japan they're very fond of doing that with satsuki azaleas but I always feel it's a bit too drastic to wash every grain of soil off this is how I'm progressing and then just show you before I put it in a final pot because I need to raise it and expose more root okay so sorry about all these different half finished jobs because I have so much to get on with I want to show you everything that I've got here now this is another tree I dragged in from the field believe you me we don't just have 10 or 20 we have hundreds easily 500 to 1000 of these trees that have been grown over a period of 36 years since I've been at this so they are my long-term projects and they're all coming up to fruition but as I mentioned at the start of this video I have this habit of leaving it and leaving it hoping that they will either get thicker in the trunk or become more interesting and then I never get to see the end product now this I think is another example of an air layering because it hasn't got thick roots and it's got lots of fine roots around the trunk so I'm pretty sure this is one of my air layerings and it is probably an air layering from a benichidoria I can usually tell because air layering have these fine roots growing from all around the trunk and there's no sign of a thick taproot either okay so we'll look at the telltale signs if it is an air layering we will be able to find the end where we air layered it and where we cut it off I can tell straight away that this is air layering because I can't find any taproot all fine roots these are the advantages of growing by air layering air layering has so many advantages people don't realize how good it is to produce from air layering you see look at the roots there's no sign of any taproot whatsoever I can't find the end of it I bet you we can find the moss ball as well we poured around but you see planting in a flower pot has encased all these surface roots to come to the top which doesn't help the radial root structure you know we want good radial roots it is just as well we've taken it out from there to deal with it so look at the sphagnum moss here this is the sphagnum moss so this is clearly an air layering can you see the sphagnum there sphagnum moss see this is the sphagnum moss this is the air layering from which the tree was taken there you go so that is clearly an air layering let's get a bit deeper I think this is a daishojo daishojo's air layer very easily this and benichidori are two very good species or varieties that take to air layering well so I'm trying to create nice radial roots there are such a lot of roots that I don't have to worry about taking too much of because there is a lot see how compact that lovely root ball is absolutely compact but the roots are going all over the place I want them flat and radial not sprouting up so this is certainly what we've established that this is an air layering I don't want the roots to be popping up the roots are so vigorous because I want that to be the leader I'm going to chop the tree over here you see how we've made the new leader we cut it there and then the new shoot is going there and we cut it here again I don't know whether this is strong enough that is your future tree can you see how it has been made and if it was an air layering this is no more than three years old so how can you describe this tree as three years old it's three years from air layering but the stem is probably older than that and I can still go deep into there and still not come across where I severed the trunk off from so I can get it in a fairly shallow pot should I want to the trouble with air layering is that one becomes so greedy that you're always wanting to keep air layering and air layering and you don't know when to stop you know there are some trees I've taken about seven plants from the top and as the new leader grows I take a layering of the leader so it never ends but you have to call it a day at some point and I'm going to do in this video another very interesting project where I have to really bite the bullet I always talk of biting the bullet but very often I hesitate because I'm too greedy and always wanting to propagate more and more but there comes a time when I need to stop because I want to see the finished product in my lifetime so there you are a nice shallow root ball that's going to be potted up that's going to make a lovely bonsai from air layering look at that okay now we'll tackle a very interesting tree today the sun is shining but just a minute ago if you look at the black clouds we had hailstones and torrential rain so towards the end of March you get this strange weather in England which you just can't predict but it's quite nice it's getting nice and warm so I'm going to complete the rest of the maple project that I was starting the maples which are growing out in the open are not yet in leaves so I can still work on them so let's carry on doing these maple projects as I said many of these projects were earmarked for air layering but I don't want to do this okay I don't want to continue air layering ad infinitum because I will never see the end of this thing so this one this was one because the superstructure is so nice I decided I will air lay that but ideally the tree should be cut down to there now this is another one that we looked at so the choice on this one as you can see I can make the leader there so that it's not too tall but even like this it's quite interesting so maybe that would make a very interesting tree so probably I will take the other option that means cut that off and we'll avoid this back on this side and we have the start of a nice bonsai growing this way so that's that one so we'll rush through all of these and see what we can make of them so I have so many maples I'm going to work like lightning and get through all of them so if you this one already you can see the progression of this tree again this tree has been distressed in the front I know that deciduous trees we don't usually use sherry and things but it looks very nice and we cut off another branch there and the new leader is growing there so you can see how this tree is progressing nice twists and turns so I don't want any more I cut it there and I cut it back there and hopefully now it will produce more buds and this will be the start of a lovely new bonsai some of these ugly roots we can cut off not everyone likes surface roots and this will put in a bonsai training pot so that one is out of the way that's number three now this is another one that has been growing you can see how they're growing in just ordinary compost nothing special this is a lovely front already lovely branching there I don't want to keep letting it grow tall but by cutting this I'm going to force new growth to grow there I will probably keep this as the new leader but this is going to spoil the tape I'll cut that off so this is how this one is going to grow but this I'll put back in its flower pot I'm not going to put it in a bonsai training pot at all okay let's look at another one this one is another lovely one with beautiful nebari coming along and I know it's a bit tall but you can see that already the taper is forming very nicely here so I've just got to be patient and let more side shoots grow to form a triangular shape like this so this is the progress that I want this tree to make in the coming years so each year as you can see we assess all these trees to see what needs doing and what needs not doing so this is an air layering because the lovely radial roots come from air layering and this I know is a benichidori and you can see the new leaders trying to grow from here I try not to have too many shoots growing as the leader because it may form what we call an inverse taper so I will take that off take a shoots also I will take off and encourage new young shoots to grow so this is the progress of this tree so another few more years to wait on that one now how about this one let's look at all this is a mountain maple so this one you can see how you see I've got a choice of two leaders here I can make a leader here or I can make a leader here one or the other I think if I make a leader shorter then I won't get such a tall tree so as I say I will bite the bullet and with the lopper I will chop that off and let the new leader grow from there you notice what I do when I cut it I never go close to the new leader many of you would be tempted to cut it there but if you cut it there it may die further back but if I cut it here about three eighths of an inch if there's any die back you'll die to this point so that's a good thing to remember don't cut it too close so that's a useful tip I can pass on to you and try not to have too many shoots growing there because if you have too many shoots going there you can get inverse taper so that is that one I don't often use dissectums for making a bonsai but this is a dissectum maple and I think I will cut that there and let the tree grow that way so that is that one done so that's done for another year so all these trees if you can see how we make the taper tedious job but you see I cut it there and cut it there you get taper and hope that the new leader will grow from there so with this one all I do now is to take the tips out to encourage more budding and hopefully you get more buds there and that will be the future of that tree let's go through all of them this is another tree so you must be getting bored with me telling you the same old story so this one you can see what I've done here I've cut it off there and it's died back very nicely there I can go back further if I wish to clean it up with a branch cutter and then you can see how the leader is growing this is a new leader that has grown only last year so you get a lovely taper so if I want I don't want to grow too tall I cut it back there so that's this forming a taper on the new bonsai this is quite an old one again I think this is an air layering look at the beautiful place it's got a lovely lean to the tree going that way I can wire the branches down I don't want vertical branches growing there so I cut that off and hopefully I get a new leader there and more branches there so this is how this tree is going to be formed you can see where I've cut it down the wood just naturally rots to that point and it calluses over and once it calluses over you don't have to worry there's no worry about the tree dying or anything they callus quite well so that is that one so you can appreciate what a long process this is I could be waiting years and years and years for the end result now with this tree if I don't want to wait too long look at this tree it's a bit too tall if I want a tall bonsai I can have a tall bonsai but if I don't want a tall bonsai and if I don't want to air layer anymore I will cut it there okay I won't cut it flush back I'll cut it there and this is your new leader coming so this is going to be this short so that's that one you can see I have hundreds of maples here hundreds that's the trouble you've got to wait so long to see the end result now this is like a twin trunk almost and you see how the roots keep coming out they're so vigorous that the roots are all over the place now this is a very nice front for a twin trunk this is also a possible front with this as a possible leader but again you see I don't want too many branches coming from the same point because it will create inverse taper so I will reduce this so that it forces new shoots to go further back in the tree and that's what I hope the tree will do I'll put it in a bigger pot to hasten the thickening of the trunk so wherever I turn you will see interesting trees interesting things to do let's have a look at this one okay now this one if you look closely at the tree there are so many options where I cut it initially it's already started callusing so you have a choice of making that leader or this the leader so many choices let's knock that dead bit off okay so I can either make this the leader or this the leader so which one shall we choose it's nice to have options it would be a sad day if you had no options in it so I can either keep it like that or if I was bold enough I can go further down but I'll wait for it to send more shoots so I'll keep it like this and hope that it will send out more shoots and then I will take more decisions as to whether to make the lead up here or to continue letting it grow there there seems to be no end of material I've got here this by the way is not a maple it's a English elm that we air layered yeah top of another area so this is another classic tree and you see how the new leader is growing on this one look at the nebari on this look at the beautiful nebari so this whenever I see nice nebari I know that this is an air layering of another tree so this is obviously a nice new leader growing I can keep it all should I want to you could still make a very nice tree like this shall I keep it all I could keep it all if not I can cut it there and make a new leader which will have a better taper so bite the bullet you notice I'm not cutting flush I'm always leaving about quarter inch so that it'll die down to that point there you go so that is how we make the tape on that tree okay we've got so many trees that we have to work on now this one doesn't need much glue it's already coming along quite nicely you can see how I cut it there a new taper glue and I cut it there new taper glue I cut it there so new table glue so this is already well on its way now let's look at this one so many interesting trees now this one you can see where I cut it and it's died back to that point as I say if you cut it high it'll die back further so I can make it a short tree like that I can continue letting it grow I don't know I might cut it there I've got the choice of two leaders there this difficult decision I'll let all three grow this year to see which is the strongest and then I cut it off but meanwhile I can even saw it off over there and not let this grow so there's many options again I'm afraid to take the decision straight away because there's so many options probably I'll leave it so sometimes you just got to be a bit patient now this is another classic tree look at it the base is quite nice but do I want it to keep growing and growing no let's cut it down to there make new shoots it's got lovely twists and bends so what do I do I can either use that or use this maples are not often used for literati but you see it's got a literati character to this tree so that is the zigzag bend on this tree and hopefully it'll produce new twigs and branches same with this one I don't want letting it go on and on and on you see how it dies back you see I cut it there and it dies back to that point so you can see the reason for cutting it higher than the junction that I wanted to go from so that is the start of another tree like that now this is another one which is quite chunky and low and you can see how the new leader is going on this one look at it you see where I cut it back I must have cut this about two three years ago and this is the start of another chunky thick maple I cut it there and that's going to be a nice chunky thick tree so where do I stop it goes on and on now this is an interesting one look at the base on this tree I could easily air layer there but I don't think I will I'm going to chop it down let me bring my electric saw home in on this okay so with this one I don't want to let it go on and on and on so I'm going to cut it somewhere there I won't go back to this point in case it dies back there so I'll cut it there and this one is a bit too tight and I think this branch is a bit too thick I will never be able to use that thick one there so that comes off in fact I can cut it there but it might become like a twin trunk tree so that's the decision on that one now this one is so interesting here this is a leaning tree it's not often you get a leaning tree but I think it's going to look quite nice a leaning maple quite nice isn't it going that way see that will naturally rot so that will be put in a training pot and let's see what happens to that one so nothing to do with that one so that will become a nice tree in its own right okay let's look at so many now that we are on a roll let's look at this one here this is another nice tree look at this and this tree you can see it's tried to produce another leader there but it's too thick I will keep all these young twigs over there and see what happens so this thick one is doing nothing so let's get rid of that look at that little oak tree here all these are seedlings for free so this will be potted up so this is the front of the tree look at it like so this will be like that okay so that's that one done now this is a rough bark or Arakawa maple it's still alive up to there depends whether I want it that tall or not but because it's an Arakawa I would probably air layer it because they're very rare trees so I will air layer it it's still alive there but this part is probably dead no this is alive this is alive it's all alive yeah it's just that the rough bark makes it look brown so this I will air layer because I don't want to do anything to that it's too rare now this is quite interesting like a multi trunk so this is a classic case of judicious pruning pruning in the right place okay how do I know what to prune so if you want a taller tree you can make it taller if you don't want it that tall I think I can cut it down to about here you see there's so many options that's what I'm trying to point out to you because you have these options it's such fun so that tree will be like a twin trunk almost like that so that will be another tree now this is going to be an interesting one look at this one okay look at that if I didn't stand next to it you don't get an idea as to how big it is now I would normally air layer that rather than waste it but as I say I can't be waiting forever and a day so let's get rid of it so this is out of place if I wanted to make a shorter tree I could do that because every tree has got different options if I wanted to make a short tree I can cut it off there and you can have a tree like this shorter tree not so tall so I don't know what to do I was going to cut this and grow this tall because I've got a leader here I don't know whether to air layer this or not yeah we get it you get a nice twin trunk so sometimes I think we will take the other that means we will let this become the leader cut this off so that it won't form inverse taper wherever you get a thick branch going you'll get inverse taper so I'm going to take this off and concentrate on this as the tree probably this will become the leader so this will be the new tree over here like that and as Josh says we are going to air lay this to get a nice twin trunk maple from this end okay so I decided not to bite the bullet on that one so wherever we go look at this one the start of a nice bonsai there this is another very interesting tree look at that look at that multi-trunk complicated roots not everyone's cup of tea but interesting nevertheless I will in fact take it indoors and pot it up and see what happens to this so this is going to be interesting tree so this is a classic case again you can see how the taper has grown where I cut it off new tape was forming and then if I don't want the tree that tall the tree is going to be like that okay so we've got our work cut out look at this scores of trees waiting to be done so this is how we produce all our own maples for those who think that I only import maples that is not the truth we produce all these maples ourselves look at that beautiful tree you see progressive cutting cutting and you see the superstructure they're all ready to pot up like these these are too tall again this is a classic case here I cut it there let it die back there and you see the new leader growing that's where the new leader is growing I can make it go this way and we'll put it in a training pot and see how we progress while we're here I will show you this this is a case of air layering this is a cork bark elm or an English elm and this was air laid and then put in a basket and then the roots have gone into another flower pot so this will be tidied up so we've got a lot of tidying up to do so much for showing you the basic cut we will now pot some of these up and I hope you've learned something from this video about making bonsai maples there you go