Stephen Moran wrote:
I purchased a lovely trident maple bonsai last year and it is doing quiet
well. It is extremely health and has a beautiful shape. My question is why
would the leaf stems be so long? Some are in excess of 4 inches. I visited
the National Arboretum yesterday to look at a number of trident maples and
the trees there have very short leaf stems. I clip new shoots to one or two
sets, but 99% of the leaves are on stems in excess of 4 inches.



What am I doing wrong, or what do I need to do to shorten these stems?



How large is the tree?
How large are the leaves themselves?
Do you keep it in the shade?
How and with what do you fertilize?
Were the petioles that long when you bought it? (Probably
not, or you wouldn't ask. Or, was it leafless when you
bought it?)
Have you ever defoliated the entire tree?

Defoliate a part of the tree. Then, try using a fertilizer
with no or much less nitrogen. And, try keeping it in more
sun. Let us know if the leaves in the defoliated area come
back with shorter petioles.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Nature
encourages no looseness, pardons no errors. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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