thanks brother. I've seen with the red maples and kotohimes when starting from cuttings you usually get a radial root formation instead of a tap root that has no taper from the trunk going into the soil like trees started from seed. naturally you're going to get a decent swelling where new roots start, but i think when i repot and wire the cuttings in their first spring at one year old, i make sure i wire all the way down to the roots. that first loop needs to be right where the roots are coming out of the trunk. AS SOON as you see the wire biting in, remove the wire and the nebari will start thickening faster because of the slight wounding from the wire. the nice swelling taper will happen easily with an airlayer.

@@DarthMasiah Nice to see people come up with new techniques! I think one point would be more taper, I’d like to see how much basal taper (swelling not just at the nebari but also a bit above according to the size of said tree) one could achive with a root graft only, removing a sliver of bark and attaching said root graft along the lower trunk instead of right at the base to achieve more taper AND maybe even fluting??

@@DarthMasiahI’d also like to mention the movement in your trees are quite nice, the style reminds me a lot of Jonas Dupuich, in “the Bonsai Wire” podcast he says he likes to alternate between a “kink” and a “bend” to achieve some randomness and I see a “kink and a bend” on one of your red maples, really cool!

not at the moment.

Ok, thanks for the reply@@DarthMasiah