So I got a chance to take a look and the trident maple now that the leaves are gone. What appeared to be a lot of new growth wound up being not very useable. The problem was that the growth from the lower part of the tree blocked out growth from the upper section, so no new branches near the top of the tree.

As you can see I was able to bend many of the branches down as planned. However what I exposed were few branches near the top.

Keep in mind, I am only focusing on developing the basic structure of this tree, not complete branches. The Secondary and Tirshiary will come in following years. So I am using wiring and bending, along with Clip and Grow to develop this tree.

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At times I’m reminded of my Mother saying, “well you wanted a puppy…”, because when it comes to Bonsai there is a lot of work to be done.  However I am still very happy that I have my Bonsai collection, and my trees are all doing very well.

Here is my huge Trident Maple after its first year in a Bonsai pot. The weather hasn’t fully turned very cold yet, so I helped my tree go dormant by removing the leaves.

You can see all the buds in place ready for next Spring, so removing the leaves didn’t hurt the tree. However it does allow me to get a look at the growth, and get prepared for all the wiring.

Notice how all the new growth is growing straight up, well that’s what needs to be wired down. Why? Well first of all old trees have hanging branches, whereas young tree have branches that grow upwards. So by wiring them down we add the illusion of age. Also it opens the tree so that light can get to the trunk and more branches can grow. Remember last year there were very few branches so in a very short time this tree has become rather dense.

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Well Fall is here, and sometimes it even feels like it. In Orlando our weather ranges from the 60′s – 80′s during the day and 40′s – 50′s at night. So most of the time it just feels like a really nice Spring day. However it is officially Fall so I thought I’d take a look at the trees for some evidence.

According to my Bougainvillea it is Spring time and time to flower. The poor thing is a little confused because of our warm weather.

The Crossostephium Sinesis isn’t doing much better and has manage to put out one more flower for the year. Not a very exciting bloom, but still interesting to see.

The Bald Cypress has figured it out and is ready for next year all ready. It has pretty much lost all of its leaves but have a few branches with bud loaded and ready to pop next Spring.

However there is no fooling my Trident Maples. They know it is Fall and time to drop their leaves to prepare for next Sping. This is an exciting and active time in Bonsai because most of the wiring and styling happens while these trees are dormant. Fall colors in Orlando are usually pretty boring so I chose to show this picture in Black and White.

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Well last year I attemped my first approach graft on my Trident Maple that was not budding out where I needed it to. Today I got an opportunity to inspect the graft and it looks like it was successful.

The last time I showed the tack the branch was much thinner. However over the year the branch has thinkened, and the graft has really healed.

Here is a close up after the tack was removed. Normally I would clip off the lead branch before the graft. However I think I’ll leave it on a little longer just to be sure that the graft is ready and strong enough to support the branch.

Here is the tree as it looks right after loosing its leaves for the year. I have some wiring to do, but the tree has filled in nicely.

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