Ken Does Maple Madness At April Meeting

At the ACBS's April meeting, our own Ken Huth showed us his "maple madness" ideas to start projects for this growing season.  Ken showed some slides on how you can make some pretty amazing stuff with a few seedlings and a couple of growing seasons.

Ken in known for experimenting with unconventional training techniques.  He likes to see what He demonstrated a neat root over rock maple setting a group of six trident seedlings over a rock, and keeping them in place with a tight wrap of black electrical tape and steel wire.

Ken also demonstrated a fusion project binding a small handful of seedlings into one, coiling them together with a tight wrap of steel wire. Additionally, Ken brought in a group of experiments from past seasons where he left the wire in place and the tree grew over and around it.  While keeping the wire on a tree is not often recommended, he showed several examples from his experiment.  Some of the trees thickened considerably and produces some interesting textures and shapes along the trunk.
These are inexpensive project ideas and look like a lot of fun to try.