Japanese Maples
G’Day and welcome to tony’s bonsai. I want to give a shout out to my men, scott, the bread thief has again. I can’t carry on anymore with that um. I have a bit of banter with scott and he asked me to uh: do an intro in australian.
So uh there we go just like to say hello to all my antipodean subscribers anyway um people from all over the world. Watch it’s uh. I love the you know the community, but let’s crack on with the video and today it’s about acers and the dead or are they.
I was in b m bargains yesterday buying some antifungal spray and i came across these aces going green reduced to clear one pound and i just couldn’t resist picking them up. They’Re all the same variety, these they’re all the going green acer and they have got some life in them, but they’ve just i think, they’ve just been allowed to dry out.
To be honest, so all i’m going to do is take my scissors cut off the dead leaves, and hopefully these will come back from all these fresh buds i’ll, just zoom in and show you i’ve zoomed in here on the top of the tree and as you Can see it’s just sending out lots of little green buds all around, so i’m very confident that this is going to come alive, so this first one i think it’s an absolute banker this next tree again it’s got some dead leaves on.
It’S got one green leaf, but again it’s got lots of buds happening all along um, i’m going to just trim it down a little bit just to give it a bit of extra chance. So well, there’s ones all along these.
So i’m basically just going to kind of leave that i’m not sure whether to remove this leaf. I suppose it’s not doing any harm. It’Ll not hurt the tree and it’s already effectively been defoliated, so i may as well leave that one on just let all these new ones develop, and finally, we’ve got this one now the leaves on this seem quite crispy and dead.
So i’m going to i’m going to get rid of them and fully defoliate this, because, although there’s a little bit of green on them, they’re like quite crispy and they’re not going to make it and by removing all of these, i’m basically telling the tree look, you Need to send out a load of new buds and growth just one leaf at the top there, i’m going to get rid of that as well.
Actually, i’m going to get rid of them all cut it down, and this is actually quite an interesting little tree this one i’ll just show you the base really interesting little basis. Um looks like it’s got a nice spread of roots coming out and then it kind of splits off into sort of three trunks.
So it’s like a kind of multi-trunk tree, so i think that could have some potential in the future. Hopefully it leaves out and lives on it’s just a weed in this one which i’ll pull out, and this is acer, palmatum phoenix, i’ve never heard of this variety.
So i did some research on it and it’s uh it’s supposed to be a lovely tree and what i’m going to do is it’s alive. You know it’s doing, okay, but it’s not perfectly healthy. I suspect it dried out a bit and it’s got a weird branch in the middle that i need to get rid of.
Hopefully, you can see in here there’s there’s a branch that looks like it’s split off the main trunk at some point. It’S kind of calloused over it’s almost healed up, but it’s bent off at a really strange weird angle: i don’t like it and so i’m going to cut that off.
I’Ve left that sort of branch below it there that may as well go as well and in the future. This will be removed completely, i think, but for now in fact, i will i’ll just cut it back to there give it a little bit of room for die back, and i want to get this planted in the ground on a tile.
I just had a look around for a tile and i couldn’t find them. I hadn’t put to one side, but i think they’ve gone to the tip, which is a shame and thinking about it, because it’s not in the best health.
I don’t want to mess with the roots really, so i’m going to use my better judgment and leave it in its part and just water it and look after it for the rest of this year and probably plant it out into the ground next spring.
When i should do it, but i’ve got something else to show you now which uh well, it’s not looking great. What we’ve got here are the air layers that i did a couple of months ago on my big maple that i bought on facebook and, as you can see, one of them has changed.
I took a look yesterday after the success of my hawthorn. I thought i’ll. Take a look and see how the maple’s doing and i had a look and there was absolutely no root on it at all. The moss was still nice and damp.
Everything looked good, but there was no real calcium, no roots. So i put a pot around it. Put some moss in it made a new cut and had another goal, so i thought i’ll do the same today i mean there might be roots on this other one.
I’Ve got a feeling there won’t be, but let’s take a look anyway and if there aren’t any roots, i’m going to do the same um different technique on this branch that i did on this one. So let’s have a look.
I’Ve not looked at this, so i don’t know whether it’s worked but as i say, because the other hasn’t worked. I just suspect this one isn’t isn’t happening either, but you never know. I think this is like a nine to one outsider.
Remove the wire and see it’d be wonderful if it’s full of roots, because i really wanted this to work, but i just don’t have a good feeling about it. No, i can’t see any roots in there because of the lack of success with the first one.
I just wasn’t confident that this one would uh would have worked, but you know sometimes you never know it’s still got a little chance, i suppose, but with me not being able to see any roots. I can’t seem to get this wire off why it hasn’t worked.
I’M not sure, like i say, my hawthorne worked and the other maple one worked last year, but for some reason this one isn’t uh isn’t liking it. So we’ll remove the plastic, now see what we’ve got no no roots at all.
There could be some inside, but there aren’t we’ve got nothing yeah. I didn’t think there would be. I don’t know. Oh that’s! It’S almost like. It started almost callusing here through the bark. How strange that’s weird, so it’s almost producing calluses through this bark, which is probably why it’s not actually rooted where i want it to root, which is down here.
What i’m going to do is take a plant pot, cut down the side of it and just sort of cut out a bit of a hole in the middle like this, and this is a hole for the trunk. So the idea now is, i can fit that around there, like that, put some moss in it.
I can’t afford to go too much higher with this, because this is kind of where i want the base of the tree to be so. I’M just going to take off about five millimeters of bark like that. This is a bit of a crappy knife.
Actually and just let me get rid of this plant pot, that’s in the way there we go and cut down like that. So ideally, the new root would grow out from here. I’M just going to go around the back. It’S a bit! It’S a bit awkward round here, but i’m just going to go around and cut this back section just the same way that you’ve just seen me cut the front, i’m just cutting off about five millimeters down roughly and then this will allow, hopefully new roots, to form The way this has responded is a bit strange to me.
I’Ve. Never i don’t really know what’s going on. Maybe some of my subscribers have got an idea of what happened if you have i’d love to hear just get some of this rooting powder dust it on now it didn’t work last time, but perhaps this time it will do the business the uk is currently und Going through a bit of a heat wave but preston didn’t get the memo, it’s freezing, cold and rain in here.
I’Ve got me popped back now onto the tree there, and all i’ll do is just wrap this way around quite tightly like that to secure it slide. The pot down onto it like this and then wrap the way around the pot like that and fill it with moss.
I got some nice moss that i’ve just uh added water too, and i just just put it around there like that stuff it down like this. So there’s plenty there where i want the roots to grow and then i’ll just re-tighten this wire and sort of twist it up and around the tree like that, so that’s kind of holding it in place nicely.
Okay, that’s quite secure now and we’ll just add one more piece of wire, so i’ve got another piece of wire here, i’ll just again twist it around the base and i’ll just come around the pot in the opposite direction.
This time, why does that come loose there? Not sure, anyway, i’ll just pull this round, i think i’m going in the same direction as the other wire to be honest, but this one seems to be a fair bit tighter and i’ll just come round around there and then perhaps having done that, i might have To just retighten this first piece, which yeah i’ll just give that a pull.
Oh, that’s better, give that a nice pull twist it around and that’s really secure. Now that that’s not going to blow in the wind or anything, it’s not going to slide! That’S uh! That’S there to stay and hopefully that’ll root.
I’Ve not got massive hope, but who knows, although these air layers obviously were not successful, i still think they’ve got a chance, a second sort of bite at the cherry as it were. However, the main purpose of buying this tree was for the base and since i’ve done these air layers, it’s shot loads and loads of new growth out from the bottom.
So when i do eventually cut these down, even if i don’t get anything from the top, i’m going to have a really nice healthy tree with some lovely lower branching, which i think is going to make a fantastic tree.
So you know, air layering is a bit like life. You win some. You lose some, but uh yeah. I always enjoy it whatever. You know it’s, ultimately, it’s just trees in it. So, as always, thanks for joining me, if you’d like to follow the success or failure of these uh air layers hit subscribe and, as always have a great day,
