eplov90
Sapling
During winter I picked up a new Japanese maple grown locally for 15+ years by someone that was moving on most of their collection.
The things that immediately stood out were the nice spreading nebari and movement in the lower trunk which I think give this tree a ton of potential. It clearly also has some issues with leggy branches and more importantly, a lack of taper/interest in the top 2/3 of the trunk.
The previous owner told me it was in need of a repot so that was the first action on the agenda and I did end up finding a pretty bad root system due to the heavily broken-down soil.
It's been repotted in fresh mix and given the poor condition of the roots, I figured I should let it grow wild this year before doing any drastic work. This spring it has thrown out a ton of new growth so I thinned out the foliage towards the top to let some light and air reach into all areas of three.
I see two possible paths here for long-term development and I'd like some help choosing one:
The things that immediately stood out were the nice spreading nebari and movement in the lower trunk which I think give this tree a ton of potential. It clearly also has some issues with leggy branches and more importantly, a lack of taper/interest in the top 2/3 of the trunk.
The previous owner told me it was in need of a repot so that was the first action on the agenda and I did end up finding a pretty bad root system due to the heavily broken-down soil.
It's been repotted in fresh mix and given the poor condition of the roots, I figured I should let it grow wild this year before doing any drastic work. This spring it has thrown out a ton of new growth so I thinned out the foliage towards the top to let some light and air reach into all areas of three.
I see two possible paths here for long-term development and I'd like some help choosing one:
- Option 1 - Rebuild it as a much shorter tree, probably about half of the current height. In this scenario, I'd need to graft a new leader and then pretty much every branch would have to be rebuilt from scratch as well.
- Option 2 - Keep it the same heigh but regrow the final third to add more interest and taper, and maybe let a sacrifice grow in the middle third to try to improve taper transition. In this case, maybe a few branches could be retained, although they would still need to be chased back.