Advice for American Elm seedlings

[Skludgie]

This past spring I had several American(?) Elm seedlings set up camp in an unused nursery pot that still had some soil in it. Of the dozen or so seeds to sprout, there are about 4 or 5 seedlings left. Of those, one has taken off and is 24+ inches tall. Something ate/ stripped the leaves off the others and they are much smaller but seem healthy.

I would like some advice on how to best ensure that I can get one or more of these seedlings into bonsai pots at some point in the future. It occurred to me to put them into the ground for a few years, but I am not sure how to best go about this, I also don't have the space to be growing 4 or 5 Elm trees individually. Assuming I doing plant them:
- should I plant them now, or in the spring?
- If I plant them, how good/ bad of an idea is it to plant them as group and try to separate them after a year or two?
- What type of work will need to be done to them seasonally/ yearly to help set them up to make good bonsai down the road?

If I opt to leave the seedlings potted, what should I be doing to prepare them for winter? Also, should I leave all of them in the pot until spring, or should I remove the weakest now and make more room for the best candidates?

 

[Shibui]

These are elms so pretty tough but I'm pretty confident most growers would opt for the much safer spring transplant, especially if you are cutting any roots.
Can't help you with winter preparation or storage as there's no indication of where you live. Winters vary considerably as do many bonsai tasks depending on the local climate. Without any indication of location we can't offer meaningful advice. Best to upgrade your personal profile with a location then it shows up every time you post and saves remembering to type it each time.

Elms have no problem with root pruning so almost any sized tree can be chopped down and root pruned severely to get it into a bonsai pot when the time comes so it does not really matter what you do until that time comes.
If planted close together the roots are likely to fuse below ground level making it very difficult to separate after the trunks thicken.
I would separate the seedlings a bit to allow each to grow separately. That spreads the risk a bit if one or more don't do what you expect. An alternative would be to plant them even closer together to form a clump of trunks. The risk is that if one does not grow according to plan the whole lot may become useless. I've discovered the more stems I have the harder it is to achieve a good outcome.
There are many different ways to develop seedlings into bonsai so you can do almost anything with these small seedlings and still end up with good bonsai.

 

[Tieball]

Can you add your general location to your profile?

 

[rockm]

Those don't look like American elm...They might be, but the leaves have no indentation on the bottom margin, a characteristic of AM. The serration is also a little coarse for AM, as well. Looks like it could be Chinese elm--which is a common street tree in many parts of the U.S. I'd look in the local landscape around your home to see what kinds of elms are there. Chinese elm is often sold as "lacebark elm" by landscape nurseries.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Those are probably not American elms. Yes they have the double serrate leaves, but American elms are noted for having a very dramatic asymmetry at the base of the leaf.

Put your general location in your profile so we can help with care info. If you lived in Grand Rapids, we would give different advice than if you live in Philly.

This is too late in the year to do anything with the roots, but you might consider loosely wiring the trunks to give them some movement before they get too thick and unbendable.

 

[Skludgie]

These are elms so pretty tough but I'm pretty confident most growers would opt for the much safer spring transplant, especially if you are cutting any roots.
Can't help you with winter preparation or storage as there's no indication of where you live. Winters vary considerably as do many bonsai tasks depending on the local climate. Without any indication of location we can't offer meaningful advice. Best to upgrade your personal profile with a location then it shows up every time you post and saves remembering to type it each time.

Elms have no problem with root pruning so almost any sized tree can be chopped down and root pruned severely to get it into a bonsai pot when the time comes so it does not really matter what you do until that time comes.
If planted close together the roots are likely to fuse below ground level making it very difficult to separate after the trunks thicken.
I would separate the seedlings a bit to allow each to grow separately. That spreads the risk a bit if one or more don't do what you expect. An alternative would be to plant them even closer together to form a clump of trunks. The risk is that if one does not grow according to plan the whole lot may become useless. I've discovered the more stems I have the harder it is to achieve a good outcome.
There are many different ways to develop seedlings into bonsai so you can do almost anything with these small seedlings and still end up with good bonsai.

Thanks for the reply, I thought I had already add my location and zone to my profile, but I've added them now; zone 6b in Southwestern PA.

I think I'll get some wire on a couple of the stronger seedlings this weekend and plan separating those out and getting them in the ground in the spring.

 

[Skludgie]

Those are probably not American elms. Yes they have the double serrate leaves, but American elms are noted for having a very dramatic asymmetry at the base of the leaf.

Put your general location in your profile so we can help with care info. If you lived in Grand Rapids, we would give different advice than if you live in Philly.

This is too late in the year to do anything with the roots, but you might consider loosely wiring the trunks to give them some movement before they get too thick and unbendable.

I've updated my profile to have zone and location, I'm in zone 6b.
The parent Elm is not on my property so I cannot get close enough to it to get a good look at the bark and leaves. The tree is 60 or 70 feet tall with the lowest branches about 25' up. It drops leaves and seeds into half a dozen yards. When I was initially trying to identify the tree I only had the samaras that had dropped this spring to help me and my best guess was America Elm. I wasn't entirely confident in that identification, especially when considering how rare I have read that the American Elm has become.

There are already some leaves beginning to drop and those do have the asymmetry in the base that you mentioned. Unfortunately, it looks as though there may be some issues with a fungal infection as well. These leaves are somewhat smaller that what I have become accustomed to raking up every fall, the largest pictured here is about 4 inches long.

American, Chinese, or something else, I think I'll get a bit of wire on the seedlings and get some of them into the ground come spring.

 

[Skludgie]

Those don't look like American elm...They might be, but the leaves have no indentation on the bottom margin, a characteristic of AM. The serration is also a little coarse for AM, as well. Looks like it could be Chinese elm--which is a common street tree in many parts of the U.S. I'd look in the local landscape around your home to see what kinds of elms are there. Chinese elm is often sold as "lacebark elm" by landscape nurseries.

Thanks rockm, I've add my zone to my profile.
There is some other info and a picture of several leaves from the parent tree in a response to Bonsai Nut. I don't know if it is possible or not for the leaves properties to change as it matures or not but the only mature Elm that I am aware of in the immediate area is a very large tree whose canopy reached into several back yards. The leaves from that tree to have the more pronounced asymmetry. My neighborhood has houses fairly tight to the street as well as close together so there are a lot of japanese maples and other similarly sized trees.