I have a rooted Japanese Maple cutting. It is a 'Yuri Hime'. I purchased this cutting with a few others online. They are from a reputable source and were shipped to me in what I considered to be excellent condition. I was very pleased. The juniper is still doing great in its bonsai container. The only of the 4 who seemed to transition well out of their original containers. (more on that in a moment) The wisteria grew out a V of two branches with healthy green leaves and was doing great. I transplanted it out of it's original container and the the V was turned upside down in a week and the branches were off the stem soon after. The stem was a bare stem again, just as it had been all winter long. The crab apple had held onto three leaves all winter long in my 3 season porch. Those leaves are also now long gone. I have a 3 ft piece of scion wood stuck in a pot that i scratched and has green under it, but it has been a bare stick in a pot for so long now I am worried. Here we are at the MAPLE. My biggest concern. The maple cutting was in fantastic shape when I received it. I was so excited about the cultivar. Wow. Loved it. Over the winter it seemed to hold onto its leaves as well. As I try to look back I can not seem to recall when the leaves all left the cutting. I know for the whole of winter it held onto just a few at the top of the end of each of shoot branch. I think for my first ever winter with tree cuttings I did pretty good. All 4 made it through the winter alive. It was in spring when I started messing with them and transplanting that things went wrong. All 4 cuttings were in tiny little containers. Maybe 3 inch squares. They were in some kind of very open air mix of shredded bark a bit of vermiculite and not a whole lot else. In comparison what I put them in was not as breathable at all. I put them in a mix of hardened clay pellets with a bit of compost and then some sort of ProMix, with somoe vermiculite, charcoal, shale rock mix. It was surely a smorgasbord of stuff that I thought would make a great potting mixture that did not hold onto moisture too much and still could breathe. I can see now that the difference in the aeration qualities of the mediums are in drastic contrast. Bad move on my part for sure. Now at present day I have cut off parts of the tops of the maple cutting. I suspect the cutting i still alive because anything above a node has died back to the node and beneath the node closer to the ground the cutting retains its reddish color. There are parts of the bark near the base of the cutting that are exposed and have turned a dull off color browinsh-grey. Will this cutting ever have a chance of growing back new leaves. Or is it gone?
