Feel free to share your design opinions on this Shishigashira!

[Jphipps]

Here's a quick virtual I put together off of the feedback I've gotten so far. Not fully decided but I think I'm getting closer. Thoughts?

 

[Orion_metalhead]

Not bad. I would leave the bottom left branch long and let it run unpruned for a few years to thicken it up. It should be your primary branch and the thickest branch. Otherwise looks good! I think you could probably keep some of the existing tertiary and finer branching but this kind of a reduction should give you a lot of new options to work with after the tree responds.

 

[Davidlpf]

Really great feedback so far. I guess I'm still torn with this tree. Part of me wants to leave most of what is there to maintain some of the natural "wildness" that has already grown. A different part of me sees what many have mentioned about cutting off a lot of the secondary branches as they seem too thick. I would lean going this route to have much better taper (and possibly better tree) in the future but obviously it would really slow down the development process. Especially with such a super slow growing cultivar.

Maybe shishigashira maples are slower than othes maples, but they cand make long shoots if your let them grow when having a good root ball. They have hard britle wood, so if you want bend some branches, you must do it when they are young; cut it back and working the new shoots is IMHO the best option.

If you want to see some good branch structures, I have a collection of shishigashira photos that I had picked from the web here click,click

In order to do an omelet, you must smash some eggs before. Don`t be afraid of cut, it'll grow again, and you can do a better tree in the future.


Cheers!

 

[clem]

To obtain this tapper of the trunk on the great tree above, you'll probably need to let sacrifice branches grow on the trunk and/or perform clip & grow.

Not sure, but maybe they also used fused trunks at the base to obtain such a large and fat nebari.

 

[Jphipps]

Maybe shishigashira maples are slower than othes maples, but they cand make long shoots if your let them grow when having a good root ball. They have hard britle wood, so if you want bend some branches, you must do it when they are young; cut it back and working the new shoots is IMHO the best option.

If you want to see some good branch structures, I have a collection of shishigashira photos that I had picked from the web here click,click

In order to do an omelet, you must smash some eggs before. Don`t be afraid of cut, it'll grow again, and you can do a better tree in the future.
View attachment 521835

Cheers!

Incredible photo album. Very inspirational.

 

[BobbyLane]

Out of all the trees in that album I think this should be closer to what the OP should be aiming for with the material

 

[Davidlpf]

Here you have an example that they are no so slow. After a hard pruning, if they are well rooted, they can grow really strong!

50 cm in only one growing season, not so bad for that litlte trunk.

Cheers and Merry Christmas for all!!

 

[Jphipps]

Update to post. Repot today 2/24/2024.

Heavy root reduction off the bottom to get it down to a size suitable for a future as a bonsai.

I used large grain Akadama directly below the trunk (shin). The rest is sifted pumice. It's a bit overpotted so I'm going to watch watering very carefully. Hopefully it responds well and fills this box with new roots.

 

[Jphipps]

Another proposed virtual. Plan is to air layer these sections off. Bottom left branch left on to thicken and then later cut back.

 

[leatherback]

nice project. I would add another 1-2 inches of substrate, to the tree can throw out some more roots for your nebari. Right now you only have these big fat roots, which imho could do with some branching, and/or smaller roots in between.

 

[The Barber]

I'm still pretty new but I like the foundation in this tree. Plus I wanted to play with my new phone's AI photo editor lol.

 

[Contact]

Sono ancora abbastanza nuovo, ma mi piacciono le fondamenta di questo albero. Inoltre volevo giocare con l'editor di foto AI del mio nuovo telefono lol.
View attachment 530325

like this interpretation of the tree, it's half way between drastic cut and a more naturalistic style...of course it's possible to save the most of the branches in this tree to be more conservative as someone said before in another answer of dicember