Sunday, June 1, 2008

Japanese Maple group refurbished

This is a Japanese maple (Acer palamtum) clump that I got in a trade yesterday. It was quite neglected during a couple of years. It probably was not repotted correctly, still sitting in the same akadama soil which has decomposed over the years. And then it probably was never fed well. Consequently the group started to die. Many branches were dead and the center tree was almost competely dead. But only almost. So I worked on it for a while and then fed it with a lot of nitrogen. We'll follow the development of this clump. In a cople of years it will shine again. The nebari is fine, the placement of the trunks is OK. The trunks are all rather the same diameter and the center trunk is too thin. This can be corrected by letting the center trunk grow uninhibited for a few years and it will thicken considerably. We'll see.