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Posts Tagged ‘Japanese maple’

I’ll keep this photo essay short on words and long on images: Jorge Trak studied repotting techniques in February. We covered a lot more trees than I show here, but this Trident was one of the better documented of those we did photograph…

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Jorge beginning to uncover the top roots on this Trident maple that had been growing with great abandon in my backyard for two years. There was a 9′ leader on it. It had been ground-layered for a better nebari 2 years ago.

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The roots had grown through the Anderson flat and straight through the weed barrier cloth. It took Jorge 10 minutes to cut off enough of them so he could even pick it up off the ground. Look at the top edge of the flat, which is bowed out from the power of the root system.

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When we uncovered the roots near the trunk we discovered a nearly 10″ fused nebari. It was about half that 2 years ago.

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Cutting off the old root system with a saw. I don’t use many power tools, but this would have taken us more than an hour I think using a hand saw.

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After washing and trimming, and also thread-grafting some seedlings for roots on the left side—they are the straw-colored ones. (Washing is only necessary when doing intensive root work, and generally only on young deciduous trees like this one.)

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The light colored, longest roots are the seedlings that were grafted.

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New home for the trident.

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Tucking sphagnum into the roots near the base.

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Nice green twisties so we don’t bang up our newly grafted seedlings.

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We also looked at this Japanese maple that I air-layered when I got back from Japan, about six years ago.

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Nebari on the air-layered Japanese maple. We did approximately the same thing with this one as the Trident, except no thread grafts were needed. Gotta love air-layers! And ground-layers. Anyhow, thought I’d share these young trees with you-

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Now that I have your attention… This post is about a common bacterial disease called Pseudomonas syringae, which frequently affects Japanese maples yet is relatively easy to control. It is often misidentified as Verticillium wilt, as both cause tip dieback. The Pseudomonas bacteria form purply-black stem discolorations, which is the result of a toxin produced by the bacteria which kills cells. Twigs, branches and eventually the entire tree may die. Older and stronger growing trees are less susceptible, as are some varieties. Do not prune maples in the fall (especially in the Northwest) as this disease enters any wound and is encouraged by wet, cool winters. Any cut, at any time of year, should be sealed immediately with a liquid sealant.

Control is three-fold. The first is keeping your Japanese maples strong, healthy, and damage-free. The second and third are related: If you can keep your tree dry during wet and cold periods, that is half the battle. The other is chemical control, which is by copper sulfate or similar bactericide. ZeroTol (an oxygenator, essentially a very strong form of hydrogen peroxide) is excellent. Top spray and bottom drench is recommended.

If you have problems with this disease, try a chemical drench after repotting or after heavy root work. And if you live in an area with wet, cool weather in the fall through spring, seasonal prophylactic spraying is a sharp idea.

Clearing away leaves and especially seeds of maples—like bigleaf or vine maple—is essential after leaf fall as these commonly planted landscape trees are frequent carriers of the disease. Keep leaves and moss away from trunk bases, too.

The purply-black tissue damage of the Pseudomonas bacteria shown on this branch is typical of the disease.

Discolored stem damage above and below a pruning cut (seen as a white stub) where the bacteria likely entered the Japanese maple.

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Some of you may have been following the development of this Japanese Maple. I just took the brilliant red leaves off yesterday; we’ve had a lot of sun here in Portland and they did not last longer than 1 1/2 weeks. But it was a beautiful fall.

In any event, the small trunk to the right—which was originally an airlayer of a branch from this tree—has grown well and feels well ‘locked’ into the nebari. The nebari is bigger than it looks, it is just covered at present with soil to establish the young trunk. I’ve been piling cake fertilizer near it to stimulate the fine feeder roots that are the ones that fuse into a solid mass eventually. The upper roots were so active that they were growing right up into the cakes. I had to literally cut off the fertilizer balls yesterday.

One of the downsides of this higher rate of fertilizing is that the apex of the tree gets stronger, so I removed leaves in the top part of the tree during the growing season. It will take a couple years before this tree settles down again, but we did need that strength to fuse the smaller trunk in. The roots were so active that the tree has risen almost half an inch in the pot since this spring.

I will be repotting the tree next year, and the two photos here show the new front I’m thinking about for it. The shift is subtle, but that small difference allows an arc to the trunk that supports the flow of the tree to the right. Also, the branches are more interesting from this new view, and the small trunk pushes to the rear…which is not textbook for a parent/child style, but at least it is not a flat tree.

The small trunk was left to grow wild this year. Next year some light wiring will direct the branches and a main leader will be selected.

Former front

Future front

Japanese maple

This is the tree 1 1/2 years ago, in January 2009. The lowest right branch was air-layered off and is now the small trunk seen in the above photos.

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A post from last year was something of a quiz that asked how to improve a particular Japanese maple. This is a follow up post…

The lower right branch was airlayered off and integrated into the nebari on the right side to create, eventually, a double trunked tree. The parent tree has been tipped slighted to the right, and branches have been moved around a bit, in particular upwards.

Later this year or even next year the branches of the new trunk will be wired, but for now it is best to leave it alone.

The different color of leaves and timing of leaf emergence is common when you have a part of a tree with great roots, and another part—the recently airlayered part—that is on few roots.

These are the two previous posts:

http://crataegus.com/2009/03/29/japanese-maple-update/

http://crataegus.com/2009/01/21/japanese-maple/

Photo from late March.

Here is the maple leafed out, in early May. It will likely need some shade protection when summer comes, to protect that new trunk.

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