ERCLover’s Field Maple

[ERClover]

Through the generosity of @heeclee I was able to give this Field Maple that was formerly his a new home. Picked it up a few weeks back, got it settled in its nice new sunny location, and after a time decided to do some branch selection and trim down to a single leader to serve as somewhat of a sacrifice in development of the apex.

The tree has settled in nicely and after some pinching of apical buds is pushing new growth on my selected branches and budding all over. I am having to scrape off unwanted buds regularly!

This is by far the most developed trunk I have now and I am thrilled to work with it. I will work overtime on some of the bulge sites with a concave cutter but don’t mind the reverse taper around the hollow one bit. I love it as a feature. It was quite deep so I took a user recommendation of using the kwik wood product to fill it. Loving were this is going!

One this new growth solidifies a bit I will lightly wire out my selected primary branches. Already some of the lignified portions will need to be carefully done so I want to get the rest while still supple.

 

[Dabbler]

Nice and gnarly - I like it!

 

[circledisk]

That looks great!

 

[heeclee]

Glad to see it find a good home. I would love to see how you develop this tree

 

[ERClover]

This tree is growing like mad! I need to get some wire on my selected branches stat. Thankfully I have some time off coming up where I will give this some good attention and really try my hand at setting some primary branches. Going to continue to let the new apex thicken a bit but at this rate it should be well on its way. This thing as pushed some loooong nodes over the last few weeks so I may set the first part of some primary branches and then not fertilize as heavily next year.

 

[heeclee]

This tree is growing like mad! I need to get some wire on my selected branches stat. Thankfully I have some time off coming up where I will give this some good attention and really try my hand at setting some primary branches. Going to continue to let the new apex thicken a bit but at this rate it should be well on its way. This thing as pushed some loooong nodes over the last few weeks so I may set the first part of some primary branches and then not fertilize as heavily next year.

Looking great and really growing well.

 

[ERClover]

Did some root work, trimming, and a repot on this one. Decided on a good height to let the future top come from and got rid of a lot of old deadwood in the root system from when the tree was in the ground. Still lots of good healthy, fine roots around the top but the repot was definitely needed as there were a ton of circlers around the bottom. Potted into some nice coarse Haydite and hopefully will be ready for a nice strong spring. Lot of design work left to go on this but I still love the trunk line. Hopefully with time the size/bark transitions smooth out. A lot of initial branching coming from a similar spot midway up the trunk but it back budded like crazy last year and will hopefully do so again as the top fills out.