Norway maple # 4

This maple had already been growing for a few years at the bottom of our garden and has a very interesting shaped truck.

When I dug this up from the ground I had already decided that I wanted to place the exposed roots over a rock. I used clear cellophane to wrap the roots to the rock and separate this area from the soil so that the roots would grow downwards. I then planted the tree and rock back into the ground.

I also buried a slab in the ground and placed the tree on top of this slab to force the roots to now grow sideways once they were out the bottom of the cellophane.

The image above shows the portion of the tree that I have planned to keep. This will mean that I will remove the long branch from the final design. I have left this to grow at the moment as this was the only section that had leaves plus it helps to thicken the truck and roots while allowing the tree to grow unrestricted.

Norway maple # 1, 2, 3

Norway maple (Acer platanoides) is a very common tree in the south of Finland. There were two big maples in the garden of our old house and each year new shoots would start to pop up all over the ground underneath the big trees. A few I took and planted into the ground and left to grow there for 3 years. During the winter the rabbits would come and eat away the brackets. We moved house at the end of last year so had to dig them up if I wanted to bring them with me.

The size of the leaves are quite big and I am told that they are not easy to reduce, but I will at least work on them and let's see what happens. If nothing else it will be good practice doing the normal tasks (trimming, pruning, repotting etc.) that is required to make a normal tree into a bonsai style.

The tree below is possibly the variety "Crimson King" which has dark purple leaves. Believe it or not the tree had been the ground the same amount of time as the above two maples but has only grown 10 cm in height.

All these trees were removed from the ground in October 2008 and potted into these pots. I understand that this would not be recommended to do so late in the season, but it was either that or leave them for the new owners to maybe dig up and destroy anyway.