Sharps Pygmy

[b3bowen]

I have a Sharps pygmy (pictured below) that is on its own roots. It is nice and healthy, but grows pretty slowly since it is dwarf. I like where the top is heading, but the trunk is a little thin and slender. If I want to enlarge the lower trunk, but get taper, at this point I need a lower branches to act as sacrifices. These however will grow very slowly given the variety (if I can get them there at all.) I was wondering if anyone has ever tried thread grafting standard Japanese maple low on the trunk of a dwarf variety and letting it grow wild to build the lower trunk. I can then just remove the grafted branches when they have accomplished my goal. My thought is that the standard maple would grow much faster and allow for trunk thickening more quickly. Would it work?

 

[Dav4]

I wish I could say definitively that your idea was a good one but suspect it will work to some degree. Either way, it sounds like a pretty cool experiment.

 

[Maiden69]

I'm not an expert but here is what I think based on the explanation Ryan Neil gave on grafting black pine into ponderosa pine. He said that he can do that because ponderosa pines roots are strong like the black pine and will not skip a beat feeding the black pine foliage. But that he would do so in a pine that has weak roots, kinda like the way white pine is grafted into black pine roots. I think the momiji will demand too much from the roots, and probably will lead to the top of the tree being discarded.

You could grow this one as a slender tree, layer it at the junction of the trunks and make a 3 trunk, or feed it aggressively and see if the trunk thickens up in the box, another alternative would be an Anderson flat allowing the roots to escape through the bottom.

 

[Ohmy222]

I actually want to try it now but I suspect it will be limited by the actual roots of the Sharp’s. I would be more inclined to graft up high though and then You won’t have a scar low on the trunk.