So this is actually my second time trying this, first results are still unknown! Maybe there’s a surprise Japanese Maple waiting for that 10" box elder trunk to be removed so it can skyrocket the following spring?
So Box Elder seems to be the invasive plague of the entire northern hemisphere now, and I’ve diversified my hacking and uprooting with some grafting.
This time I’ve grafted both red and green-leafed Japanese Maple onto Box Elder Manitoba Maple, aka Ash-Leafed Maple and many other names, which is good for nothing but maple syrup, firewood, and maybe fake burl wood.
I’ve made 7 grafts on 4 trees outside, one a whip and tounge on a cut stump with large young shoots, two trees topworked with bark grafts, and a whip and tongue on a lower shoot of a leaning 4" tree.
Inside I’ve got 10 seedlings or so, that I pulled out and grafted, some chip buds, some T-buds, and some whip and tongue, some of the grafts are weird because I didn’t have ideal grafting material.
I also would like to try a typical red leafed Maple like ref Norway Maple, sugar maple, or a varigated Maple, perhaps a large maple would surpress the suckering habits of box elder. Also I would like to try a Tartarian Maple just because they’re so beautiful, and they grow a bit slowly.
Hopefully no one messes with them they’re in very obvious places by the sidewalk at the edge of a park in Moscow, hopefully my labels will help, even though I misspelled Maple (in Russian) on the first couple tags.
The Japanese Maple is slow growing, old and hard, and this is a thick piece, about a half inch, so it’s not cut so well, many people online will often say that a whip and tongue with this much space will not survive, but the lower shoot is very green and can be squeezed to fit, I think it will be fine, but leaving the tape for a few months is important.
