After starting Bonsai a number of years I purchased an Acer palmatum ‘Ukigumo’ – “Floating Cloud Japanese Maple” from Lowes a national box store to try to make it into a Bonsai. I chose my tree because it had a good graft on it and that was about it since I did not really know much else. The species of Palmatum did not matter to me then as they all looked pretty much the same except for the Maroon colored ones. So I bought this tree in a 5 gallon pot and watered it, fertilized it, chopped it back several times, let it grow where ever, developed some deadwood on it and finally styled it in the summer of 2019. The tree spent the winter in the garage. This tree did spend winters on the north side of my garage just sitting on top rock landscaping rocks. I had built a L shaped fort made of bails of straw for walls. I put a lot nursery stock including this Japanese maple in the fort. I used dry leaves for insulation and shoved them between all the pots, foundation of house, fence and bails of straw. Pots were leveled off for watering purposes. This maple sitting on the north side of the garage survived just fine with temps going down -12 F.
I lucked out plain and simple when I bought this tree. It turns out this tree is one of the top Palmatums in the country and sought after buy a lot of Japanese Maple lovers. This tree will at some point will develop variegated foliage on it with White, Green and Pink colors. This tree will actually decide on its own when the colored foliage develops and that could take a lot time until it is mature enough. I just found out this information this year. I cannot wait for the leaves to start changing.
I did wire some new branches into place (spring 2020) from ones that sprouted last year and cut others off. Right now it is sitting in full sun and I will be moving it under 30% shade cloth as it gets warmer. I run it under the shade cloth when I think its going to storm and produce hail!
All in all a fun little Bonsai project to work on and learn from. So check out those Box store Japanese Maples, you just might a rare tree to. Watch the grafts though.
Update 05-30-2021:
This tree was totally restyled during the winter inside my house while I watched a movie. It is much, much smaller then it was. You would not believe its the same tree but it is. I chopped it back and wired the tree still in its nursery pot and returned it to the garage for rest of the winter. Some branches do have wire marks on them which will take some time for them to get better. It does need some new branches to extend on the right side of the tree. I placed the tree into a Sara Rayner pot in April. The tree spent several weeks being run into and out of the garage when night time temps dipped to the low 30’s. The soil was covered with cut up sphagnum held in place by galvanized wire bent into a bracket shape. The tree is spending the spring and summer under 30% shade cloth. I have lost a few small branches and the tree did flower and is growing ok now. The flowers looked really cool on the tree. It looks like I may be getting a new branch growing in the right direction on the side I need it! The tree does have some deadwood on it, I am thinking about removing it. The root ball will be reduced in future repottings.
Gallery 05-01-2021:
Gallery 05-27-2020:
