Shaping a Dissectum Maple for Bonsai

so today is the 14th of June right in the middle of the year and in seven days time we are going to have the longest day I'm going to do a bit of pouring on this tree this is really a guard will tree that I've been training as a bonsai I purchased it from someone's garden years and years ago maybe about 15 years ago and I've put it in this big pot and every year it goes about two feet and I keep trimming it back to give it the bonsai shape the reason why I'm going to prune it because yesterday Saturday I had a customer who wants to buy this tree I won't tell you how much she wants to pay for it and I'm now going to prune it to make it more like a bonsai so how do I do that I will just use a pair of secateurs and that's all I need that's all nothing more what I will also do is to maybe look at some of the thicker branches if it needs it but I don't think so it's really the thin branches so you'll be surprised what I can achieve just by using the pruners and aside from talking i could probably turn this tree in 15 minutes [Applause] with a tree like this what goes through my mind by now you must know what I tried to achieve I try to achieve a nice conical shape for the tree but to achieve a conical shape is easier said than done because it's got like two long zone so let's remove some of the thinner branches so that we can see the trunk the secret of all one side pooling is to show the trunk unless the trunk is visible it doesn't really look like a bottle sign so thinning the trunk is the secret to creating fun size shapes so and because this the sector more all the discectomies have this weeping habit the weeping branches tend to cloud the trunk she looked a bit conscious I'm taking off and also I've always said where you don't get might you get a lot of dead branches look at all the dead bonuses in there the dead branch is not because it C is not have a face the dead branches of that because it's not getting light as simple as that still removing dead branches many people wonder whether you should be pruning maples in summer I'm a great believer in summer pruning because if you prune in summer even quite thick branches the tree heals very quickly any cuts made in the summer heal quickly so we carry on the weeping habit is both a help and a hinderence the weeping branches always tends to clutter the trunk but also it gives it a very graceful feeling and a graceful look so you can now just about see the lovely Punk and this is obviously the front of the tree some things are obvious sometimes they're not the more I look on the inside the more dead chicks there are again smoke because the tree is not healthy is just that it's not getting light so if we have an overall view from the front we will see for the shape is coming remember that maples are meant to be very delicate looking trees and if it is very dense and very congested in heavy-looking the refinement and the delicacy of the maple is lost so I'm trying to create a balance between getting the tree to be very delicate and yet retaining [Applause] this is clouding a bit so during the year you will have to keep an eye on the branches because they grow very very rapidly and of course this particular customer line I visit his home once a month and I keep an eye on his bonsai so I'll have to keep an eye on this tree as well in case you did not know I have a lot of customers who use my maintenance services so I don't just sell trees I've maintained that trees in life not all customers do that but this particular customer uses my services for that I always get a bit annoyed when people buy a tree and think they don't have to maintain it all look after I think the analogy of a car is always useful if you buy a good card not necessarily an expensive car and you don't service it the car will go down here or not work properly same with a bonsai you have to maintain it and this is where many people don't appreciate that fact so this just generally thinning and this again those of you who are hairdressers he tells me that what I do is exactly what he does when he does have this thing ladies hairdressing you don't just hack the ends you actually tend the branches and layer it it is layering you see how I'm layering her to see how much lighter has become I've barely worked ten minutes look at the debris on the ground look at the demo all that has been taken off in just about ten minutes the future of maple is that they are the city's trees and they do grow very rapidly so don't despair that you were to make a mistake including it will go again well I think that is all I need to do to the streets a pretty big tree better and that is light enough and the top is also rotted a little bit I'm not too worried about that just I'm not going to cut it too close I'm just going to leave a little stump because if you cut it too close it may cause the apex to die just going to leave about quarter inch from the junction just for safety sake not many people appreciate what I do but there's a reason for doing it and from experience I find that if you go too close to a node or Junction it may cause dieback photons I'm going to just seal it I know it's a dead branch it's not losing moisture but stopping it from losing moisture in the summer even in the spring is quite important so I just put these little bits of cut this having taken any big branches at all and I think that is all I need to do so that tree is looking quite right now you may have noticed that it oddly looks like that and other people don't like roots like that but because to me it looks ugly what are we to do I'm going to put a piece of rock and put and rock in here and then it'll give the impression that this method is actually growing always hard to get the right sort of rock whether he liked that but you get the idea you know the same sort of thing you want to put in there it may not be this small foot something like that for us so that takes away the attention from the ugly route so that's the tree done I think I barely worth ten minutes if I didn't want talked so much I would have done it in three minutes [Music]

Channel: Herons Bonsai

Views: 410,502

Keywords: Herons Bonsai, Bonsai, Bonzai, Herons Bonzai, Herons Bonsai Nursery, Bonsai Nursery, Garden Centre, Peter Chan, Bonzai UK, Peter Chan Bonsai, Indoor Bonsai, Outdoor Bonsai, How to care for Bonsai, How to look after bonsai, Indoor Bonzai, Outdoor Bonzai, Evergreen trees, Japanese Garden, Zen Garden, Pruning, Pruning Bonsai, Large Bonsai, Garden Trees, Acer Palmatum, Maple Bonsai, Chinese Elm, Chinese Bonsai, Japanese Bonsai, Bonsai for Sale

Id: 9FdLIF-T03I

Length: 12min 51sec (771 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 29 2020