Japanese Maple 08
Acer Palmatum ‘Kiyohime’

FEBRUARY 5, 2024. This one went with me to the Jim Doyle workshop this weekend. Good work was done, and Jim said nice things about the tree. He did suggest a lean toward the front for the next repot; he’s right. It will help. I took it in so I could get some help cleaning up the scares from my clumsy over-cutting-back when I got the tree six years ago. Disappointing to hear him say just learn to live with it now. Damn. He liked the overall shape of the tree, though, and approved my wire job on a a branch to become the new leader. We talked a little about the eventual height of the tree, but nothing was done to it. I spent about twenty-five minutes cutting back every last twig to a single pair of buds, and I’ll spend a lot of time pinching things back this spring. Now that the structure is pretty much set, I can go ahead and start refining the branches. YAY! There’s a photo of the tree all naked down below. I’ll get a couple more when the buds pop and when the new leaves are set.

March 1, 2023

MARCH 2, 2023. I repotted this tree last week, and so far I’m happy with how well it’s growing. It has really taken off, and I’ve already had to cut back a lot of the new growth. I was so busy with repotting almost all my other maples that I didn’t get around to chasing down second buds on new shoots. Oops. At least I got the trunk at a better angle this time. I was disappointed to find that the center root from the front view was no longer viable. It had begun to rot and break away, apparently some time ago. And the bark immediately above that point was dead as well, so that had to go. Now I’ve got a gap in the trunk that I have to deal with one way or another. I can either do something to protect the exposed wood and work on the scarring around that space, or I can hollow out the wood and make this a front feature of the tree. With all the older scarring up and down the tree that might be OK. Time to make a new virt!

I’ve decided to cut back or even cut off some of the upward growth on the two side trunks and see what it looks like if I just let all the top growth elongate as fas as it will go. That should help the overall image develop the way I want it, but I’ll have to wait and find out.

August 6, 2022

March 15, 2022. Hmmm. It looks like I make notes after repotting, then ignore things for a year. Something else to start paying attention to so I get better. The list is growing. Several things came together to make this a year not to repot the tree, after I didn’t bother to slip pot it last year. It’s still in the John Cole pot and still planted at slightly the wrong angle. After yesterday’s struggle breaking up the maple group, I’m not eager to repot another maple, and this one could use a year unbothered by repotting so it can just grow. And growing is what it’s doing already. Before the freeze last weekend, I had done a little pruning and had even knocked off a lot of extra buds showing up in clusters. When I took things out of the garage yesterday this one was in full growth mode, with some shoots already having several pairs of leaves and looking good. I might have to cut some of this extra growth back this week. It makes me really glad I’m not repotting it!

March 15, 2022

I really want to get two photographs made in good light this year: one soon, with the new leaves showing that crazy color, and one later, after the first growth has hardened off and I’ve shaped it a little. They each need to show the tree in the preferred position, even if I have to tilt the pot! UPDATE: One down, one to go!

March 21, 2021

March 22, 2021. Some day I’ll get something right the first time. Just not this year. In the first place, I decided to put this tree in a pot. Not a grow pot, but a real pot. It’s not ready for that yet. It’s just not. Then I thought I was correcting the planting angle of the trunk, but I didn’t go far enough. I think I can let it grow a while (until May probably) and then move it back to a plastic grow pot at a better angle. And I’ll still have to keep moving the branches on the left (from my preferred front) down some early on in their growth. Anyway. Even if I decide not to try to slip pot it into a better growing situation in May, the tree has to just grow and grow this year. I can’t do any pinching. I can’t do any “shaping” of the silhouette. I have to just keep it in good light, not let it burn in July, clean out enough foliage to let light into the center, maybe bend a few new branches out of the way, and feed it like crazy. The photo was made yesterday.

April 11, 2020. Photo yesterday. I now think the lean to the right was way too extreme; it looks like somebody kicked the crutch away and it’s about to fall over. I’ll put it back the way it was next time around. It’s going to be a sweet tree, though. And it will deserve a nice pot some day.

February 6, 2020. OK, this is fun. I’ve done a sketch of where I want this tree to go. It’s not perfect, but I like it. I’ll move the tree to a 22″ plastic grow pot this spring, putting it in a heavy potting soil-aggregate mix. Growth should be good, and I’ll use Walter Pall’s method of letting it run and cutting it back in six weeks. Fingers crossed for good growth. In preparation for the repot, I’ve already pruned it back and done a little work on scar reduction. UPDATE February 26. I repotted it yesterday, And I think it was just in time. Buds are showing leaf shapes on most of my maples, so I’ve got to do a lot of that this week. I removed more thick roots from the bottom of the tree, and tilted it a little to the right in the pot, just to hide a stumpy end of a big root. That actually might help a lot, because it leans toward the first big branch that way. I’m going to wait for significant leaf growth to take a photo.

March 17, 2019. Repotted and the right side sub-trunk cut back some more. I just hope it was enough. Again, I just need to let growth happen this year. A lot of growth. Maybe I’ll keep my hands off of it!

October 17, 2018. This tree has grown well this year. I’ve got a lot of longish leaders that look particularly healthy. I’m not sure I’ll keep them all — probably not — but I’m not going to lose any of them next year. In fact I probably won’t do anything about shortening them for another year. But some will need redirecting a little bit. Maybe. I’ll have to see the tree without leaves before I decide.

Next year all I want to do is keep it in a box and maybe change the soil out to a potting soil mix. I’ve got some gaps in the soil, so I probably have to fix a problem with the drooping bottom of the box.

May 4, 2018. It’s growing well, and I couldn’t be happier. I have enough new growth to be able to let them all grow wild for a couple of years and thicken up before I choose some as primary branches. (I think of the three big ones as secondary trunks.)

2018. February 18. I went to Tuscaloosa to dig some trees at Leo Wagner’s and got this somewhat overgrown Kiyohime. It’s got a nice trunk, and the primary branches have been cut back over time. But it was woefully overgrown, with really long-internodes on all the recent branches. The good thing is there were a LOT of them. I chopped it to glory, and I hope I didn’t overdo it. It’s in a box and has a good rich bonsai soil to grow in. We’ll just have to wait and see.