3 years ago I ground-layered an Acer Buergerianum that I put in a wooden growbox 4 years ago. Since that last post I kind of neglected the tree for almost 3 years. It just sat there in a corner of my garden getting watered together with the rest of the trees.

The plan was to remove the ground layer last year but for some reason that didn’t happen.

Today I finally found the time to see what had happened in those 3 years.

Ofcourse I forgot to take a picture before I started removing the screen mesh but anyway, here’s a picture right after I removed the screen mesh. It looks like some new roots grew…

Let’s look a little closer…

After removing the wooden growbox it’s obvious I can’t use it again, bottom was pretty rotten, just the way it should be.

After combing out most of the soil and cutting back the roots a great new nebari appeared, this was beyond my expectations. Like always the picture doesn’t do the real thing justice.

After potting up the tree it looked 10 times better than before. Now it’s time to start working the branches, but first I’ll let the poor thing recover for a while.

Close-up!

This is a fun project that I started 4 years ago. The progress can be watched here.

Since the plan is to keep the tree in it’s wooden growbox for 1 more year I figured it was a good idea to give it one more big cutback and let it grow freely for another year after that.

Before the work started the tree looked like this:

It grew really well last year.

After cutting back to the new leaders I ended up with this result:

View from above:

After some wiring and applying cut paste to the wounds the tree is ready to go into spring.

Now that the main trunk lines have been set I can repot it next year and start working on the branches.

Oh my… I neglected this tree for almost 3 years and just let it do it’s thing in a corner in the garden. But damn, am I glad I did that!

Previous posts about this Acer Buergerianum trunk fusion project can be found here.

I needed a shovel to get the wooden growbox off the ground since the roots grew right through the wood that had slowly decayed over the last 3 years.
The whole thing was about 2,5 metres or 8ft high.

After cutting back the branches I moved the tree to the work table.

The wooden growbox was so rotten that I could literally peel it off (with a little help from some tools since the roots grew in the wood).

A very dense rootball appeared together with some big long roots.

After almost an hour of combing out the roots and cutting back the big roots the result looked like this :

As you might have noticed, only 3 of the 4 trunks that the tree had 3 years ago are left, I cut off the 4th a few months after I made the previous post.

Anyway, time to put the tree back in a pot. No more wooden growbox this time but a regular plastic training pot. After putting some wire on a few branches to point them to the right direction I was done for the time being.

Because I let the tree grow out for 3 years it completely closed all it’s big wounds. Ofcourse I made some new big wounds but they will also heal eventually. That’s what trident maple bonsai do.

The photo below shows a big wound that has closed completely with another big wound above where I just cut off a branch.

Now let’s try to get some more branches on this sucker

Oh my… I neglected this tree for almost 3 years and just let it do it’s thing in a corner in the garden. But damn, am I glad I did that!

Previous posts about this Acer Buergerianum trunk fusion project can be found here.

I needed a shovel to get the wooden growbox off the ground since the roots grew right through the wood that had slowly decayed over the last 3 years.
The whole thing was about 2,5 metres or 8ft high.

After cutting back the branches I moved the tree to the work table.

The wooden growbox was so rotten that I could literally peel it off (with a little help from some tools since the roots grew in the wood).

A very dense rootball appeared together with some big long roots.

After almost an hour of combing out the roots and cutting back the big roots the result looked like this :

As you might have noticed, only 3 of the 4 trunks that the tree had 3 years ago are left, I cut off the 4th a few months after I made the previous post.

Anyway, time to put the tree back in a pot. No more wooden growbox this time but a regular plastic training pot. After putting some wire on a few branches to point them to the right direction I was done for the time being.

Because I let the tree grow out for 3 years it completely closed all it’s big wounds. Ofcourse I made some new big wounds but they will also heal eventually. That’s what trident maple bonsai do.

The photo below shows a big wound that has closed completely with another big wound above where I just cut off a branch.

Now let’s try to get some more branches on this sucker