Small Nishikigawa

[baron]

Maybe it's a stupid question, but why graft at this stage of development?

I always saw thread grafting as an option to add branches to an already established design or tree incase theres no buds coming at the right position.
Seen as you're still building the trunk, wouldn't it be better to cut back and wait for new buds to pop all over and select/keep those that are in the right position to create the primary branches?
Or is this not as vigorous as a standard green palmatum? or is it to speed up the proces of creating trunk and the branches at the same time?

 

[thumblessprimate1]

Good question @baron Nishikigawa and maybe other rough bark acers palmatum do not pop out buds like many others. It is not a cultivar which needs to have unwanted buds rubbed off each year like many others. Chopping it without branches, I might get buds, but maybe not exactly where I want. Further, I stress that this tree is intended to be a small sized one, so I'm ready for branches. Trunk will continue to develop once I've had successful grafts and chops later. It will be slower, but it's fine for what I want in smaller bonsai. I think with developing shohin, it's better to be have a slightly smaller tree than one too big. You can't make a big tree smaller once its trunk is too big to be shohin, but a smaller one can grow a little more to be just right.

 

[0soyoung]

Can you explain the issue of having the donor plant lower?

IMHO, it doesn't particularly matter where the donor plant is. What matters most is that the end of the thread points upward. Even though it will turn upward on its own as it grows, it grows more vigorously if one sets the end vertically. Last year I made a couple of thread grafts like this, but my donor tree was a 15 foot tall Higasayama landscape tree. The roots were below my stock tree and all branch ends but the two I used were higher than tree being grafted. IOW, branches are largely autonomous - what happens to one largely doesn't affect the others.

btw, Just like pegged rose stems, the arched stems (on the input side) will tend to pop buds at the top of the arch and make a new vertical shoot there.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

IMHO, it doesn't particularly matter where the donor plant is. What matters most is that the end of the thread points upward. Even though it will turn upward on its own as it grows, it grows more vigorously if one sets the end vertically. Last year I made a couple of thread grafts like this, but my donor tree was a 15 foot tall Higasayama landscape tree. The roots were below my stock tree and all branch ends but the two I used were higher than tree being grafted. IOW, branches are largely autonomous - what happens to one largely doesn't affect the others.

btw, Just like pegged rose stems, the arched stems (on the input side) will tend to pop buds at the top of the arch and make a new vertical shoot there.

Yes. Oso is better with words than me