Plant ID please

[Grouphugs]

Can anyone help me ID this plant that has self-seeded under my camellia?

It's not a straightforward weed (I don't think) as its stem is quite woody almost like a sapling. Leaves look a bit like an oak but not quite.

Not sure if I should compost it or move it to a better spot.

Any ideas?

Don't worry! I have identified it as a field maple.

Though goodness knows what I'm supposed to do with it. Our garden is petite - I wonder how much space it would need.

Most people would just pull it out

If you really want to keep it put it in a pot for a few years until it's a bit bigger and then decide if you want to plant it somewhere.

They grow well in pots, you can just keep pinching the tips out and make it bushy.

I'd get rid of it tbh. Our garden would be a thicket of sycamore and oaks if we didn't root out all the seedlings which appear.

Thanks all! I like the idea of potting it and trying to make it bushy.

I seem to have some free time at the minute, so staring obsessively at a potted weed would seem to fit the bill nicely.

An alternative would be to let it grow in the ground a few years until it's got a bit of thickness to its trunk and then bonsai it. I've never done this, but if that idea appeals I'm sure there is info online.

You can get quite a satisfactory quasi-bonsai effect by keeping it in a pot from a seedling. I'd have thought if it had got a bit of thickness to its trunk in the ground, it would also have quite a massive root system.

You can get quite a satisfactory quasi-bonsai effect by keeping it in a pot from a seedling. I'd have thought if it had got a bit of thickness to its trunk in the ground, it would also have quite a massive root system.

We randomly chatted to some bonsai people at RHS Tatton park a couple of years ago - DH was vaguely thinking of bonsai- ing a random oak sapling in a border and also one (sown by a squirrel we think ) in a pot. The former was definitely the one which they thought had potential - the idea is it gets a trunk of the desired final size which will eventually look like a mature tree in miniature, and decent roots, then prune everything back, gets fibrous roots growing instead which then get successively pruned till they fit one of those flat pots. Takes years I think ... DH never did get round to it.

If you just grow in a pot it never gets the same sort of 'proper tree' form, as far as we could gather, stays too skinny.

If you just grow in a pot it never gets the same sort of 'proper tree' form, as far as we could gather, stays too skinny. That makes sense. But I think it will get there eventually, going from nature trees in rock crevices, so I suspect it's more a matter of accelerating the process. You can get a 100-year-old tree look in a pot by growing it for 100 years (actually probably more like 40) or you can do it quicker by growing it in rich soil with a free root run and then chopping the roots.

Yes, you'd have to do the reduction gradually, if you tried to do it in one go you'd kill the tree.