Japanese maple: too much pruning Help!!!
- Thread starter allenph2005
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2014
- Messages
- 11,586
- Reaction score
- 5,667
- Location
- La Porte Texas
- Hardiness Zone
- 8b
- Country
Yep, you really did. Being that it is very close to summer and the tree was in full leaf one should never remove more than about 30% of a trees foliage at one cutting. It looks to me that you did about 80%. I doubt if it will kill the tree but it will be a long time before it regains a semblance of what it should look like, if it ever does.
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2018
- Messages
- 3,517
- Reaction score
- 3,875
- Location
- "The Tropic of Trafford"
- Hardiness Zone
- Keir Hardy
- Country
Hi and welcome.
Japanese maples are pretty slow growing. New growth usually comes from the top. It's unlikely you'll get any new growth from those thick branches you've pruned off. It'll come from the hanging thinner lower branches.
But they do respond to a bit of careful training.
It's best to do it when they are young. We have two. This one we've had for over 35 years, the branches below the canopy twist and turn a lot because it wasn't the ideal shape to start with.
Here looking as usual "dog rough" in January this year
But over the years I've managed to train the canopy by wiring and pruning
Here it is in May this year.
This one we bought around 15 years ago. It was a bit lopsided. To explain "wiring," I surrounded it with a circle of canes connected by some strong garden wire and attached thinner wires to the branches I wanted to move and to the wire between the canes and shortened the wires a a bit every few months, so they adopted a new position as they grew.
This is it in May this year.
Some lower branches die off each winter.
I pruned this lot off the pair of them this January, plus a few more, but they are always replaced by new growth at the top,
You could try a similar bit of coaxing of the lower branches to hide the ends of the pruned branches, if you wished but you have to do it a bit at a time as it's easy to break even thin branches and it's a long process.
Japanese maples are pretty slow growing. New growth usually comes from the top. It's unlikely you'll get any new growth from those thick branches you've pruned off. It'll come from the hanging thinner lower branches.
But they do respond to a bit of careful training.
It's best to do it when they are young. We have two. This one we've had for over 35 years, the branches below the canopy twist and turn a lot because it wasn't the ideal shape to start with.
Here looking as usual "dog rough" in January this year
But over the years I've managed to train the canopy by wiring and pruning
Here it is in May this year.
This one we bought around 15 years ago. It was a bit lopsided. To explain "wiring," I surrounded it with a circle of canes connected by some strong garden wire and attached thinner wires to the branches I wanted to move and to the wire between the canes and shortened the wires a a bit every few months, so they adopted a new position as they grew.
This is it in May this year.
Some lower branches die off each winter.
I pruned this lot off the pair of them this January, plus a few more, but they are always replaced by new growth at the top,
You could try a similar bit of coaxing of the lower branches to hide the ends of the pruned branches, if you wished but you have to do it a bit at a time as it's easy to break even thin branches and it's a long process.