How to study and prune a Japanese maple into a bonsai tree.

Hey everybody this is Robert from Asia Pacific Gardening. Today we're going to share this knowledge how to correctly prune your maple tree into the bonsai. So when you have the maple tree even you're pruning the big tree or bonsai tree they always showing their character. What is the character of the maple tree? You can see here from the top right here they always continue to grow long like this. Looking at this one here too and looking at this is the second year here always grow long like this. So we try to limit this one here. Of course the simple way if you do the big tree a lot of people like to just chop chop chop chop making the mushroom. That's not the one the style we would recommend and you can do the better idea other style and you need to limit it because if you're looking at from the side way let me turn this on the side look at this here it messy and crossing each other but they showing all the tree one two three everything just go long like this. So I suggest consider from the top first and the second layer and the third layer so became like a layer to prune the tree. Like always when you do the bonsai you need to study the tree. Let me turn this different angle you can see here we tried to find out where's the front of the tree which is the beauty of the tree we want to put in the front and take a look here let me turn that back and sometimes it can be hard to see the structure if you've let the maple grow too long. It is hard to find a nice maple tree they only have the curve like this. This is the one we selected from the farm the the original farm the training the tree been training the tree in the nice shape. So most the maple tree in the market is a straight up. I don't know this this tree have interesting this to see even from this side here you can see the angle the movement of the tree the apex and we don't know the nabari what they look like this is nice nice nice front right here let's see the other maybe we should put it in a circle pot look at this this is another good one here see I like the movement right here too maybe turn like this and definitely is not this one here because this branch you take this one as the front and this branch would be pointed to you like this not suggest you consider this is the front of course you can training the branches go the other way or you just make a little bit change like this I like this that that would be looks different already let's check the other side there is maybe you find a better one see here but this part here for me is showing a lot of negative part I don't know if camera can see here there's no branches on this side here and immediately up to the top so maybe have the other option is better than this but this one here you can see this is nice one branches right here and second branches but this branches here smaller than the one on the top kind of a negative part I think I like this side right here and the one branches on the back is the smaller so you're not going to see the smaller branch on the back so we'll be turn training that way but showing this is all my structure and let's do the cut back a little bit first see if we make adjustment again so same thing first thing we need to cut back all the top layer back to the top and second layer the third layer all right let's grab our tools dude these scissors are terrible these are the best bonsai scissors I've ever used at Seattle's best kept secret if you're anything like me you're probably tired of all the fake ads that you see influencers do telling you to buy garbage products because companies pay them money for it we do things a little bit differently here because we've been using the same tools for 15 plus years just look back on any of our videos and if you visit pnetools.com slash bonsai and use promo code bonsai at checkout you can also get 10% off select barnell tools that we use on the daily basis a couple of ones that we recommend is the b814 cicadas the sharp blades at the end helps you make precision cuts without accidentally pruning off the wrong branches and in this video we're strictly using the barnell b777 blue ratchet pruner we carry this to all of our maple pruning sites the ratchet pruning technology gives your wrists a break when pruning those thicker branches so if you visit pnetools.com slash bonsai and use promo code bonsai at checkout you get 10% off select barnell tools on behalf of us now let's get back to that maple bonsai video look at this site right here it's really long and we don't need this long branches right here and this is pretty much the top of the tree and i try to limit this one here because we have a nice nice branches on the other side so i'm going to limit this one right here there you go this part right here so looking at i try to get the angle and this one right here so now this part right here so you want this is a little bit lower than this one one got a little bit longer right here remember when you cut off a branch the maple kind of just jumps up and this one here and this one right here now the lower layer we can do a little bit longer on the bottom like this and we don't need that long we don't need that long so this side we already limited probably on the tree doesn't flare out as much okay now we pretty much cut back a lot this not take a lot of time let's turn the other way so i can see the side of how much you prune look how much shorter that looks starting to see the structure now we're going to prune this part right here you want to talk about the one two three uh we don't have one uh right here one two three see one two three one two three so the cut right here so the energy would be go toward this direction okay if this is too long then we can cut back in right here just keep it like that with same thing here just one two three here is long we tried to cut a little bit shorter on the top cut the middle one and then the other two flared out yeah and look at this here also too long and this one too long okay take a look at the bottom right here too small then we'll change positions it's hard to see here okay also i guess we've never really shown our greenhouse look at all the bonsai trees we have quite a bit down in kent kent washington see here really long right try to open up this try to open up this open up this open up this and here and here dang look at that it's like a haircut see one two three cut the middle this is too long right here we don't need that much this is too long too long doesn't mean good and you can see from from my angle here just too long okay you see the layer starting to form boom it's not like a straight one long one there's always layers and pads and for this part here i'm looking at if we we can cut on the top right here but this is a big hole right here carefully look at this here if i'm cut this off with the big hole so i try to cut right here instead so this one will be developed beautiful i need to turn this way this is too long this is really complicated so and this one here this one here now you can see how long this branch is right here look at this how long is this dang that's what the tree was before all the way around and you can compare how much we've been cut back in this side look at this here and some of you may say oh we should air layer it yes that's possible but that's not what we're doing here and this is also really long we always can make adjustment and this one you can see really long really long actually a little bit more thin right here there's some dry branches right here we don't need it we almost did the end so already turned this one is sticking out a little bit still this one here right yeah and this is the ones on the bottom too this is really long too yeah same with those those are i feel like they're sticking this one yeah this one yeah it's not sticking out too much here we go but in my position here probably not see the like the one camera see oh yeah you gotta come back down i had to come back down to looking at this carefully but that we we don't have a super glue can glue back the branch is what we cut off so same thing in the technique of the big tree so you want to have the layer so down like this you don't want the one long branch down right here that would be you know blocking the light and not looks good and that's just gross and this one here we try to cut it off now i need to go down because too high right here so from this side here you can see how much we did so on the top we cut shorter it's the second this is a third layer right here but you can see this is a little bit too long right here so i just need to make adjustment right here make adjustment right here make adjustment right here and this one here and now you can see on this side here you can see here this is what we got so when you're pruning the big tree same thing you will see like this but because we have so many branches on the top of on the tree so this is the one actually actually that's way too long i'm thinking about to cut off this off from here because we have nice branches layout right here the whole thing the whole thing right here i'm going to cut right here you sure it won't make a big hole no don't do it nope he did it now you can see open up oh from here because this branch not adding any beauty of this tree and you just need to cut right here cut right here cut back a little bit like this this is back go back inside i think it already looks so much better we can see from here the backside right there is really too long each other and too many brands and this area really busy because there's one drop branch right here down and there's one branch right here down see now you can see a lot of different angle we can see the tree how beautiful this tree this one how do you think this up here off wow this movement right here right yeah let's put more on right here it'll be it'll be curved let's see what they look like what are you doing oh oh repositioning it i need to go back there to take a look behind the camera now we're going to take it out from this container right here so that's what do you or me uh in the copper together you you pull this out see like a sword in the stone ready yeah no no so like always we try to see the napari and what we're doing here is just removing the top layer to see if there's any cool root structures that we can use and incorporate into the planting of the street some interesting character here now we are the cleaning up all the extra brands and styling you can see the layer right here we tried to look at the napari but there's no other benefit to bringing down this so we probably still need a audit like that size like this the good thing this tree you can see from any angle showing the different beauty of the tree look at this here we can put the tree in a different angle so we decided going to put in the circle container to showing this tree and you can see after we parted what they look like one of the reason we select the circle part because this tree have a many option of the front of the tree but whatever we think this is the best front uh the the tree right here carefully when you have the circle part you need to looking at the feet you don't want to put the narrow you know on the different position try to put the open up on the front like here and you can see here looking at the top we can turn any angle the trees looks looks really good that's been this is the good bonsai look at this dang and now we're going to put the soil to it planted and look at how much we remove right down here it's a lot now we've finished the potting and we've been what is left of several part you can see in the different angle you can see how beauty this tree we believe we've been upgraded this tree from before to now hopefully you'll enjoy this upgrade and get some information where you have the maple tree and to upgrade it the good thing here the tree has been training when in the farm so we are lucky and we are we upgraded so stay with us to get more information click like subscribe you can share this video to if you have any other maple tree you want to upgrade it you're welcome to share the information with us thank you for watching this video see you next week