Will (hopefully) see this Azalea bloom for the first time this year

Leo in N E Illinois

The Professor
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Location
on the IL-WI border, a mile from ''da Lake''
USDA Zone
5b
Nice Bryan, Nice enough I thought I'd offer some comments.
If you plan on doubling the height of this tree ignore my comments.

If you want to keep this nice tree the same size, the 'Y' shape is a bit exaggerated, almost a profligate look. Let's visually get them legs a little closer together.

The wood is too old for wire. You can grow our way out of the issue. As the crown of both branches grow, allow twigs to grow toward each other. The taller leg, or sub-trunk, should be dominant, and have the majority of the branching and foliage. The shorter sub-trunk, try to keep it at pretty close to 2/3rds the height of the taller sub-trunk. This will be more visually appealing and disguise the 'Y' issue. The proportions of using 1/3 or 2/3 is some ''magical'' visual arts guideline, has to do with the way the mind sees things. If the proportion gets to exactly 1/2 - the mind will find it boring or unattractive. Its just a guideline, but I found it worth paying attention to. Especially in 2 and 3 trunk arrangements. In forests with more than 5 trees, the ''rule'' seems to no longer be as important.

Last is when you repot, there are angles where the subordinate trunk goes back a bit, at these angles the 'Y' looks much more narrow, but does not look like you are trying to hide the one branch. So when you repot, rotate your tree a little, to make the 'Y' a little less wide. Also, adjust the angle so the dominant leg is more upright, this will make the subordinate leg look more branch like of a sub-trunk.

The 3 tricks combined will make your 'Y' shape a non-issue, without trying to bend old wood, and without removing half the tree.

1 - allow foliage to expand canopy, larger trunk should have 33% more foliage than sub-ordinate trunk, but get the 2 clouds of foliage to approach closer to each other.

2- shorten the subordinate sub-trunk to about 2/3rds the height of the dominant trunk.

3 - when repotting, rotate the front a few degrees to put subordinate sub-trunk towards the back a little to visually close the 'Y' a little.

That should improve your tree nicely without major pruning

IF you plan to grow this significantly larger, keep in mind the above and it will work out fine.
 

SockUnicorn

Shohin
Messages
488
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1,475
Location
South Florida
USDA Zone
10b
Nice Bryan, Nice enough I thought I'd offer some comments.
If you plan on doubling the height of this tree ignore my comments.

If you want to keep this nice tree the same size, the 'Y' shape is a bit exaggerated, almost a profligate look. Let's visually get them legs a little closer together.

The wood is too old for wire. You can grow our way out of the issue. As the crown of both branches grow, allow twigs to grow toward each other. The taller leg, or sub-trunk, should be dominant, and have the majority of the branching and foliage. The shorter sub-trunk, try to keep it at pretty close to 2/3rds the height of the taller sub-trunk. This will be more visually appealing and disguise the 'Y' issue. The proportions of using 1/3 or 2/3 is some ''magical'' visual arts guideline, has to do with the way the mind sees things. If the proportion gets to exactly 1/2 - the mind will find it boring or unattractive. Its just a guideline, but I found it worth paying attention to. Especially in 2 and 3 trunk arrangements. In forests with more than 5 trees, the ''rule'' seems to no longer be as important.

Last is when you repot, there are angles where the subordinate trunk goes back a bit, at these angles the 'Y' looks much more narrow, but does not look like you are trying to hide the one branch. So when you repot, rotate your tree a little, to make the 'Y' a little less wide. Also, adjust the angle so the dominant leg is more upright, this will make the subordinate leg look more branch like of a sub-trunk.

The 3 tricks combined will make your 'Y' shape a non-issue, without trying to bend old wood, and without removing half the tree.

1 - allow foliage to expand canopy, larger trunk should have 33% more foliage than sub-ordinate trunk, but get the 2 clouds of foliage to approach closer to each other.

2- shorten the subordinate sub-trunk to about 2/3rds the height of the dominant trunk.

3 - when repotting, rotate the front a few degrees to put subordinate sub-trunk towards the back a little to visually close the 'Y' a little.

That should improve your tree nicely without major pruning

IF you plan to grow this significantly larger, keep in mind the above and it will work out fine.
Thanks so much for this wonderful advice and feedback!
 
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