名媛直播

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering if any of your knowledgeable members could take the time to look at my Japanese Maple and advise me on what to do with it this year?

Two years ago I accompanied friends to the home of a bonsai expert (apologies the name escapes me) to see their very splendid bonsai tree get its roots pruned,and look at his collection. At the end of the visit this man very generously gave me a gift of what looked like an old stick in a tiny pot- and said 'Here you go- this will be a lovely bonsai in 50 yrs'.

I took it home and followed the very few instructions he gave me, which were to put the tiny pot ontop of a bigger pot of soil, put it outside and basically forget about it. Seems i have taken him very literally because i haven't touched it since. Its bottom pot broke due to frosts earlier this year.

As you can see from the photos it has grown very lopsided and i wondered whether this might be the year that i prune it in some way to help it regain a more traditional shape?
I do love gardening but i really have no knowledge of bonsai, and all the information i can seem to get online and on youtube seems to refer to the pruning and wiring up of much larger more established specimens than my little stick. I'm very nervous of doing something wrong that could damage it.
My Questions are:

-Should i prune it this year? in late summer (I live in London, U.K)? or should i leave it be for more years to thicken up the trunk(which is about 14mm currently)?
-If i should prune it this year- which branches would you advise me to prune? (Feel free to download and scribble on the photos) the more specific the better.
-Am i still years off having to think about wiring it or designing it?
-Seeing as the bottom pot has cracked due to frost- should i repot it? What should i repot it into- a proper bonsai pot?
- Can any of you tell what kind of maple it is? I am just assuming its japanese.

Basically what would you do now?
I am never going to become an expert, but i do feel the weight of responsibiltiy of owning this little guy and i just want to do the best i can by it, so i can keep him in the family for 50 yrs.

Many Thanks,
Sarah

Repotting is too late this year. But you can gently take it out of the broken pot and slip pot into a slightly larger pot and add some soil around it.

Regarding styling it all depends on your vision for the tree. If you want to create a very small tree now would be a good time to prune back. If you aim for a huge bonsai, it needs to grow a lot more before.

If it was my tree I would cut the straight thick leader come summer and grow the left branch on photo one as a new leader. That would give the tree more tapering and movement.

OH, yes. You asked for bonsai channels working on young trees as well:

In UK:
Tonys bonsai
Expresion of grace bonsai.

Mainland Europe:
Growing bonsai with Jelle
Green machine Sweden.

Subscribe to all of them and you will get a fair idea about bonsai styling in all phases of bonsai development.