Pre winter trim

[Shibui]

First of the maples are bare down here so it is time to do the annual trim to get all the bits that were hidden among the leaves all summer.
First up are a couple of Japanese maples.

No 'before' on this first one. There wasn't really much to take off


The next Japanese maple is a bit older.


Any shoots with long internodes come off regardless of whether I need branch extension or not. There's just no place for long internodes in the final ramification.


Some shoots escaped summer trimming. Not only have they extended they have also thickened considerably. Thicker shoots have no place in tertiary ramification either so are cut out at the base. Fortunately there's plenty of smaller, thinner shoots available.


Note that these maples are old and have well developed branching and ramification so pruning these can be a little different from developing trees. Maintenance pruning is more about thinning out congested areas and removing heavier twigs while development pruning is aimed at promoting more ramification and building branching bit by bit.

After pruning.

 

[Colorado]

Really awesome trees, must be a joy to work on them

 

[Shibui]

Really awesome trees, must be a joy to work on them

Thanks for the kind words. It is great to have older, advanced bonsai but the work tends to get tedious and time consuming with so many twigs to consider and prune.

A few more done today.
English elm


Small ROR trident


Slightly larger ROR trident

That tree has a great bulge in the middle of the trunk. It swelled up after initial pruning early in development and nothing seemed to stop it swelling. I've only kept it because I like the dynamic shape of the trunk and good roots on the rock.
Large lump at base of one branch

I decided to remove a large part of that branch to lighten the appearance.

 

[Shibui]

Another trident ROR


A newer trident with more dynamic trunk. Ramification has only recently reached peak.


A more recent trident developed in attempt to get a really thick trunk bonsai.

 

[LanceMac10]

Great trees!!

 

[Shibui]

Moved on to some shohin maples. So much quicker.
Photos of just a few of them.

 

[Backwardsvg]

These are freaking awesome

 

[Shibui]

The last of the JM bonsai are now bare so today I finished JM bonsai trimming.

First a small one, relatively young


Then a larger sized, older bonsai.

You can see it is root over rock though the rock is not a big part of the design.

A few years ago a chop at the top of the second trunk started to rot out.


Later a couple of roots partly died and some rot ensued before it could heal over and before I realized I could treat it


The trunk is not yet hollow but I fully expect the decay from above to join up with the hollow below in coming years.
Neither of these hollows is a threat to the health of the tree as they only affect the dead heartwood.

 

[Shibui]

The third JM bonsai to be trimmed today.
This is one of the JM that I've trimmed religiously throughout the summer growing season so very few long shoots to trim. End of season trim for this one consist more of thinning out dense ramification and cutting back overly thick branches.


Nebari is excellent

Note that no boards, tiles or anything other than root pruning was used to develop this nebari.

Unfortunately a few year ago I defoliated this tree so I would have fresh leaves for an Autumn show. A couple of branches never leafed out and the following year I noticed dead patches on the upper branches. I assume this is sunburn from shaded branches suddenly being exposed to hot summer sun as all the dead sections are on the top of branches.


One main trunk slowly died back completely but I have not yet removed it.

I did not have time to do it today but I'll have to get the saw out sometime this winter.

For those interested in developing JM bonsai please note the swollen areas on the remaining live trunk. When you are encouraged to remove excess branches and even small shoots that's why. These swellings develop very quick when there's a cluster of even small branches close together around the trunk.