Spring has finally arrived in Orlando, and the trees are coming to life! My Large Trident Maple has been pretty sluggish this year, but this weekend’s warm sun has it popping with new leaves all over.
I just love the new leaves that come in red. It will just be a few weeks before the turn a bright green, but these colors look so beautiful!
Well the carving is done, and the tree’s dead wood has been removed. The wounds were deep in some areas, but for the most part an easy process. Although these wounds are really big in some areas, the tree itself is huge and the growth should cover over easily.
Main Branch with cut paste
The first branch section was the worst of the problem areas. Additionally two wounds were close to one another so as the carving was done they nearly touched. The cut paste I use is made for non conifers and will stay on the wound until the cambium pushes it off. I can’t stress how well this stuff works or how seriously needed this type of covering is. It will give this tree the best chance of healing by using this cut paste shown here.
Cut near top of tree
This area was starting to heal, but I needed to round off the cut so that the cambium would continue to cover over. I’ll provide more pictures later as the healing continues.
There have been some problem areas on my large trident maple for a while. There were very large cuts made on this tree and insects seem to have the situation worse. I need to clean these wounds to help the healing process. These are the main problem areas that I am talking about.
On a very cold day (for Florida) i was lucky enough to have the NoNaMe’ Bonsai Study group and Mike Rogers help me to move my large Trident Maple. Altough it fit nicely where I had it, I found that it was too difficult to work on it. So I decided to move it out into my yard for easy access. The fact that the tree and bonsai pot weigh about 500 pounds I’m not worried about it walking away.
The first challange was to get the tree out of the pot and then move the components separately.
Defoliating the Maple
We moved the tree into a plastic tub so that it could be moved more easily. Since the tree hadn’t dropped its leaves yet, the group helped the tree into dormancy by defoliating the tree.
setting the stand
The stand needed to be placed and leveled so that it would support the tree, and sit level. Edwin and David are using a level to make sure we had a perfect stand.
Finishing touches
I added some additional soil to stablize the stand while the rest of the group finished with the tree.
Combing the roots
One last task was to comb out the roots. I don’t know the next time I will repot this tree so we took advantage by working the roots prior to the repot.
Setting the Tree
The tree was then set in the pot (back towards the photo) and the soil was added. The sun rises from the right side of the photo and sets behind to the left. I am trying to develop my first branch and in order to maximize the sunlight we potted it facing this way.
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