June marks early winter here at Shibui Bonsai. The leaves have fallen off most of the trident maples and that means it’s time to start work on the developing trees. Most years I start with the Root over Rock plantings because it is always great to finally see what has happened over summer.

After cutting the roots under the box I gently ease each tree out of the soil. Breaking a few of the roots at this stage doesn’t matter as I intend to cut them back much further in the next step

Just a quick, rough trim of roots hanging out from the foil to make the trees easier to handle.

I won’t trim the tops at this stage. I really want to see the shape of both rocks and new roots before deciding where to prune the long trunks and branches.

Next time I open them up to see how the roots have developed.

I tackled some bigger garden grown trident seedlings today. Thicker roots so these took a bit more time and effort to extract than the smaller ones I usually offer.

Trident trunks like this are still available bare root – until the new shoots start to open. Prices from $15 through to $30 for these XXL bare root tridents depending on how good the root base, trunk taper and trunk bends. This one priced at $20 as an indication.

As shown, XL and XXL tridents are usually tall and thin. They are good for larger groups as is but can be trunk chopped and grown on to create trunks will have good taper in a few years.