Wiring niwaki maple trees

[ceriano]

Has anybody tried wiring young garden maple trees? I have a few young Japanese maples in my front yard. They are anywhere from 3 to 7ft tall. The branch structure looks very dense and needs work. Can I wire and twist the trunks or that’s not typically done on garden trees?

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Has anybody tried wiring young garden maple trees? I have a few young Japanese maples in my front yard. They are anywhere from 3 to 7ft tall. The branch structure looks very dense and needs work. Can I wire and twist the trunks or that’s not typically done on garden trees?

You can certainly structurally prune and wire branches. Not sure about twisting a maple trunk, first for aesthetics reasons, and second, because the wood is so hard. Can you say more about what you would want to accomplish? For example do you have a tree design in mind, or are you just asking in general "can it be done"?

 

[ceriano]

You can certainly structurally prune and wire branches. Not sure about twisting a maple trunk, first for aesthetics reasons, and second, because the wood is so hard. Can you say more about what you would want to accomplish? For example do you have a tree design in mind, or are you just asking in general "can it be done"?

No I’m just asking in general. I don’t have a particular style in mind, I searched but couldn’t find any examples. Just trying to get ideas and see if it can be done. the trees I got are still young, two are upright red (emperor 1 and fire glow) and one is a weeping red dragon.

is wiring common in niwaki trees or styling is only done by pruning?

 

[BrightsideB]

Take some photo’s and post. Come up with a design for them and just go off that. Surely you can use wire if it will bend.

 

[Hack Yeah!]

You can tether them to something. I just placed 3 steel fence posts next to one today to pull the branches up on a weeping disectum

 

[Beanwagon]

I've played around with it. I tie down branches/trim to shape.

 

[caffeinated]

I have a tall, relatively thin trunk that's been bungeed to a post several feet away to pull it off vertical, and my future leader branch being pulled a different direction in a similar fashion, just for some basic interesting trunk movement. It's more or less set now after a year in place, but I'll leave it attached probably until next summer.

 

[Shibui]

Spiral wiring as we use in bonsai is best avoided when trees are in the ground. They grow way too fast and too easy for the wire to get embedded.
Use pruning where possible. You will be surprised what can be achieved just through regular pruning.
Suspended wiring (guy wires) and props are also used where pruning alone cannot do what you want.

 

[fudo133]

I'd second Shibui's opinion on this one! From my own experience, not only does the wire bite in incredibly quickly but the branches on maples in the ground seem incredibly slow to actually set in place and have a major tendency to spring back up once the wire's removed - even if its bitten in severely.

Pruning is definitely the better way to create interesting trunk movement and branching in them, and it can be surprisingly fast once they're established in the ground.

 

[ceriano]

Take some photo’s and post. Come up with a design for them and just go off that. Surely you can use wire if it will bend.

Here are the photos. all trees were planted back in August and they are still establishing. I feel if I do any wiring I should do it before stating to get rapid growth.

Red Dragon
This one is about 2ft. I have some idea how to style this one given it’s still very small

 

[ceriano]

Emperor 1.
Don’t know if this one would benefit from wiring/pruning

 

[ceriano]

Fire glow.
All the growth is on one side. This is the one I’m really tempted to wire/prune at some point.

 

[BrightsideB]

I have a camellia I am styling in the front I am creating pads on. I agree with the other posts about pruning to create design more then wiring. I think looking at what you have and then designing the style makes it easy to keep pruned and maintained.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Concur, wiring would be a real hassle and time waster. Clip and grow, splinting and perhaps an occasional guy wire would be more appropriate. There are a bit different techniques for niwaki that are applied for trees on a larger scale. On bonsai we work micro scale.

My experience with working on our landscape trees was I was on top of the game for a bit, then had to focus on my potted trees. Then the landscape trees got established and took off…. and I cut the back… then got focused on the potted trees, then they took off…. Still haven’t given up entirely although it seems like a segue to the movie Ground Hog day at this point.

It might be better to study the principles of niwaki and work on your trees as part of a whole landscape design, using the larger landscape as your palette over time.

If you are interested, there is a book on introductory Niwaki principles by Jake Hobson, Pruning, Training and Shaping trees the Japanese Way that might be helpful to you at this stage of growth in your trees. I have a copy and it’s pretty good with basic principles. Its not extensive on maples, but should be helpful. You can get it used for about 11.00 on Amazon.

cheers
DSD sends