Its been a while since I have posted due to large work loads at the school I teach at, but I have a bit of time to post some work I did on a trident.

When I living and working on bonsai in Japan this summer I went to the top maple grower and asked about the best time to prune and wire, he said fall. So, since fall in close here in chicago, I decided to do some work. The leaves are still green, but beginning to change.

This is a big trident I bought $80 about 5 years ago. It was very ugly but had a nice trunk and base. Although the nebari is not all that great, over time I will work it so it blends into the soil better. For now its in an unglazed chinese pot which is nearly double my age at 45 years old.

For those of you who have not worked tridents before, they can take extreme amounts of prunning as long as you leave some foliage. When I bought this tree it was 2 feet taller. All the apex was just a small bud and a large cut.

The first shot is of it the tree in un-cut form after a few months in japan where it recieved no trimming back here in chicago.

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I then cut the apex off...you can see why by the photo. I didn't do a good job of trimming the apex back and it formed a knob. NEVER AGAIN! I needed to cut back anyway to achive a better tapering apex.

Before the cut...

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What I removed...

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After the cut...

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There was one large branch and one small cut off. Its important when you have two wounds like this toghether in this formation, not to make one large cut. Leave a smaller layer of living tissue between the two wounds. It will heal twice as fast this way.

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And a little wire on the apex...

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I wired the rest of the tree which took several hours. I also took about 90% of the foilage off. Doing this at this time of year will cause a lot of bud back on old wood..and new wood, in the coming spring.

What do you guys (and gals) think?

Matthew Ouwinga